I’ve been on a roll fixing up and beautifying the front and back yards here at Casa del Garrett. Among other items, I bought four solar powered Tiki torches for the backyard. They’re pretty simple devices consisting of a solar power cell and two led lights that flicker alternately inside a plastic cup. The effect mimics a lighted torch well enough and I think they add a nice touch to the backyard. The other day one of them failed.
It was always the last one to come on at night and I wondered if the rechargeable batteries in it just needed replacing. So the first thing I did was put some alkalines in it as a test. Nada. I checked its internal wiring. The things were Very inexpensive to buy and inside it showed why. Just a postage stamp sized circuit board, a double-a battery compartment, a nice looking solar power cell and a smaller cell that looked as if it were a CDS light sensor for switching the torch on and off. The parts were simply hot glued into place and the wires connecting everything were a gauge somewhere between hair and paper width. I got out a magnifying glass and looked the connections over with some difficulty as it was hard to see how good they were under the hot glue globs. But nothing seemed obviously broken.
As I said, they were cheap. So I figured I’d go buy two more (they come in pairs) and then I’d have one spare in case one of the others failed. Having bought the last two boxes of these on the shelves at the Lowes in Cockeysville, I figured I’d need to try one of the other stores. So this evening after work I drove to the one in White Marsh so I could swing by Costco for some gasoline. But that Lowes was out of stock on those particular Tiki torches. So I began to wonder if each store only got a couple boxes of those at the start of the season and was I chasing an item that was sold out all over the area by now.
I came back home and considered ordering new ones online. But the ornery techno geek in me nagged at me to look inside the broken torch one more time. It’s a simple device dammit…I ought to be able to fix it… So I brought it in and took it to the art room drafting table and opened it up. I got out the multi-meter (you have one of those…right? Every home should have a multi-meter…) and fairly quickly determined several things.
First, the rechargeable batteries were in perfectly good shape, as I’d expected since replacing them with some stock alkalines didn’t make any difference. Second, the solar power cell in those things, cheap as they are, are Very Nice and were putting out more then enough voltage to keep the batteries charged. After the batteries, my suspicions fell on the other small cell that looked like a light sensor. Here was where I reached way back into my past for knowledge of how camera light meters work. It looked to my eye like your basic CDS cell…Cadmium-Sulfide…a photo-resistor. Unlike the older selenium cell meters, which generate a precise voltage based on the amount of light falling on them, CDS cells change in resistance. Their advantage was they worked better and more precisely in lower light conditions. What was extra nice about them back in the day was if you forgot and left the camera’s light meter on, putting the lens cap on or just putting the camera away in darkness somewhere would protect the battery because a CDS cell goes to maximum resistance when there is no light falling on it, so it’s basically turned the circuit off.
…which is pretty much what makes them useful as light sensors for turning off and on stuff when night falls. They can act like a simple on-off switch. The leads coming off the CDS cell in my Tiki torch were buried under a glob of hot glue so I traced the wires back to the circuit board and took an ohm reading there with a piece of black electricians tape across the cell blocking the light out. It should have read max ohms but it read like a short. So the cell was defective.
I clipped the wires leading to it and the torch lit up. I stripped the ends and touched them together and the torch turned off again. So now I can either put a micro-switch in place of the CDS cell or see if I can find another CDS cell to replace the failed one with. This thing is so cheaply built you just know the concept it represents is throw it in the landfill when it breaks or you get tired of it whichever comes first. Had I found a replacement I’d have probably just scavenged the solar cell and the LEDs and tossed the rest out. The solar cell is a nice one. But fixing it leaves me with a degree of geeky self-satisfaction. In a world of cheap mass-market throw it away goods I am not completely helpless.
[Edited a tad…]
[Update…] I see from their online catalog I can buy little CDS cells in packs of five for a little less then four dollars at Radio Shack. So tonight I’ll check the one in my neighborhood.
So it occurs to me while having to restart both the iPad and iPhone this morning to get them responsive again, that either Murphy’s Law applies to software systems too, ie: software increases in complexity to its level of incompetence, or the 2nd law of thermodynamics applies to software, in a sense: with every upgrade, chaos always increases…
It’s Such A Different World From The One I Grew Up In…
So…yes…I Twitter. I’m coming to find that the running Tweet list is a really great way to stay informed and pick up on interesting conversations. Of course, it all depends on who you’re following. Follow a bunch of vacant celebrities and you get nothing but vacant celebrity babble. But follow people like Atrios, Ezra Klien, Rachel Maddow, Krugman and such and you get a really absorbing mix of real time chatter. And there are celebrities who are worth following: George Takei, Eddie Izzard, Christopher Walken (Although he doesn’t tweet much anymore…)
So…anyway…I tweet. And I watch. Mostly I watch. And during last night’s nightly bout of insomnia I saw this from Myth Buster Grant Imahara…
…and the first thing that crossed my mind was Who are Lanikai and Mahalo and why haven’t I read their stories? I have tons of yaoi here at Casa del Garrett and I have never heard of these characters that are supposedly so popular. However, the concept of “starter ukes” is…intriguing…
What a starter uke might look like…
What I don’t get is why Shuichi didn’t make the list. In my opinion he’d make an excellent starter uke, provided you could handle his mood swings…
Now that I’m offically a member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists my bi-weekly cartoon chores for Baltimore OUTLoud will be taking on some additional tasks. I need to be more punctual about updating the cartoon page here for one thing. OUTLoud will be carrying my cartoons on their page soon, and I can now create a small space of my own on the AAEC web site. Since I don’t do this as my primary occupation, I am an “associate” member, not a “regular” one. The difference is regular members get to vote in the board elections and post their cartoons in the main cartoon space. I don’t begrudge them that…those folks are trying to earn a living in an economy that is very bad for cartoonists of any sort, let alone editorial cartoonists.
I’ve no illusions now about ever earning a living by my artwork alone. I’m just not that competitive a soul for one thing. But also, my cartoons can get brutal. My aim isn’t merely to provoke…I have always believed that political cartoons are best when the artist takes a passionate stand for (or against, but mostly for) something. But that’s not a selling point to newspaper editors in today’s climate…
Evan Hurst says he’s listening to Queensrÿche tonight because he’s a category-defiant gay. When my first grade teacher called me defiant I should have insisted she prepend that term with “Category”… Oh no Miss Kiefer…I am Category Defiant… A good way to make her hate me even more was to let her know I knew more words then the other kids…
A Random 10
(Open iTunes or your iPod app, go to your songs list, select Shuffle and list the first ten songs that pop up…)
“Career March” – The Apartment, Adolph Deutsch
“Sound of Thunder” – Duran Duran
“Reflections of Earth – Epcot: Tapestry of Dreams, Gavin Greenaway
“Hit The Ground Runnin'” – Lie To Me, Jonny Lang
“Goliath” – David and Bathsheba, Alfred Newman
“$100 Understanding” – Happy Ending, Michel Legrand
“Jeux d’ enfants” – Bizet
The Rite of Spring, Part II, The Exalted Sacrifice – Igor Stravinsky
“Freedom” – The Best of Jimi Hendrix
“Cutting Edge” – The Brave Little Toaster, David Newman
No kidding…one minute its Enter Sandman and the next its Wichita Lineman…
Oh look…a message from the Social Security Administration asking me to review my annual statement which they have helpfully enclosed as a ZIP attachment. Three messages actually. Addressed to three different mail accounts of mine. One comes from…
inetnum: 212.232.0.0 - 212.232.7.255
netname: DIGCOMM-PPPOE
descr: PPPoE Pool
remarks: INFRA-AW
country: RU
admin-c: SDV452-RIPE
tech-c: SDV452-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: MNT-DIGCOMM
source: RIPE # Filtered
person: Denis Shatskikh
address: per. Kupyansky 7, Voronezh, Russia
mnt-by: MNT-DIGCOMM
phone: +7-473-265-4114
nic-hdl: SDV452-RIPE
source: RIPE # Filtered
% Information related to '212.232.0.0/20AS13178'
route: 212.232.0.0/20
descr: Digital communications, LTD
origin: AS13178
mnt-by: MNT-DIGCOMM
source: RIPE # Filtered
One from rcdelectric.com and one from…
inetnum: 114.108.192.0 - 114.108.255.255
netname: SKYBB8-PH
descr: SkyBroadband
country: PH
admin-c: VMDB1-AP
tech-c: VMDB1-AP
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE
remarks: Used for broadband
mnt-by: APNIC-HM
mnt-lower: MAINT-SKYBB8-PH
mnt-routes: MAINT-SKYBB8-PH
remarks: -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
remarks: This object can only be updated by APNIC hostmasters.
remarks: To update this object, please contact APNIC
remarks: hostmasters and include your organisation's account
remarks: name in the subject line.
remarks: -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20080521
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20100507
source: APNIC
route: 114.108.200.0/22
descr: SKYBroadband-Resi
origin: AS23944
mnt-by: MAINT-PH-SKYBB8
changed: cmgalicia@skycable.com 20080718
source: APNIC
route: 114.108.192.0/18
descr: SKYBroadband
origin: AS23944
mnt-by: MAINT-PH-SKYBB8
changed: cmgalicia@skycable.com 20100226
source: APNIC
role: Vanessa Maria Dolores Bueno
address: 409 P.Guevarra Street cor Ibanez San Juan City
country: PH
phone: +63-2-6369276
e-mail: vcbueno@skycable.com
admin-c: VMDB1-AP
tech-c: VMDB1-AP
nic-hdl: VMDB1-AP
mnt-by: MAINT-SKYBB8-PH
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20080521
source: APNIC
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20080521
I had no idea the Social Security Administration used the services of so many different companies to stay in touch with its account holders. The enclosed ZIPs didn’t set off my anti-virus software either. No I didn’t open them.
Also, a notice from DHL about the package I must have forgotten that I ordered…
The courier company was not able deliver your parcel by your address.
You may pickup the parcel at our post office personality,
The shipping label is attached to this e-mail.
Please print this label to get this package at our post office.
This one comes from the DHL offices at…
inetnum: 95.84.32.0 - 95.84.63.255
netname: SAN
descr: Network of Saratov branch of OJSC "Volgatelecom"
country: RU
admin-c: AVB35-RIPE
tech-c: AVB35-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: MNT-SAN
source: RIPE # Filtered
person: Alexey V Bogdanov
address: JSC "VolgaTelecom", Saratov Branch Office
address: Mirny pereulok 11/13 410000 Saratov Russia
e-mail: avb@san.ru
phone: +7 8452 757575
nic-hdl: AVB35-RIPE
source: RIPE # Filtered
% Information related to '95.84.0.0/18AS39229'
route: 95.84.0.0/18
descr: SAN route object
origin: AS39229
mnt-by: mnt-san
source: RIPE # Filtered
Another ZIP attachment that didn’t set off my anti-virus. Also…I got an email greeting card! From my dearest anonymous friend at…
inetnum: 117.192.0.0 - 117.255.255.255
netname: BSNLNET
descr: NIB (National Internet Backbone)
descr: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
descr: 8th Floor,148-B,Statesman House, Barakhamba Road, descr: New Delhi-110001
country: IN
admin-c: NC83-AP
tech-c: CDN1-AP
remarks: IP Addresses for Multiplay network
remarks: -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
remarks: This object can only be updated by APNIC hostmasters.
remarks: To update this object, please contact APNIC
remarks: hostmasters and include your organisation's account
remarks: name in the subject line.
remarks: -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20070801
mnt-by: APNIC-HM
mnt-lower: MAINT-IN-DOT
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE
source: APNIC
role: NS Cell
address: Internet Cell
address: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
address: 8th Floor,148-B Statesman House
address: Barakhamba Road, New Delhi - 110 001
country: IN
phone: +91-11-23734057
phone: +91-11-23710183
fax-no: +91-11-23734052
e-mail: hostmaster@sancharnet.in
e-mail: abuse@bsnl.in
admin-c: CGMD1-AP
tech-c: DT197-AP
nic-hdl: NC83-AP
mnt-by: MAINT-IN-DOT
changed: dnwplg@sancharnet.in 20030120
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20071227
source: APNIC
role: CGM Data Networks
address: CTS Compound
address: Netaji Nagar
address: New Delhi- 110 023
country: IN
phone: +91-11-24106782
phone: +91-11-24102119
fax-no: +91-11-26116783
fax-no: +91-11-26887888
e-mail: dnwplg@sancharnet.in
e-mail: hostmaster@sancharnet.in
admin-c: CGMD1-AP
tech-c: DT197-AP
tech-c: BH155-AP
nic-hdl: CDN1-AP
mnt-by: MAINT-IN-DOT
changed: dnwplg@sancharnet.in 20030120
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20071227
source: APNIC
This one did set off the anti-virus. Project managers take note: this is what happens when you outsource your software development projects to India. Outsource to the Russians instead, they’re Much Better. And you can trust them now that they’re not communists anymore!
The Joy Of Ink On Paper…My Lousy Handwriting Notwithstanding…
This morning, after weeks of cleaning and re-cleaning, I think my pen finally forgave me.
Mom may have known she was raising a little geek when in 1959 she asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I told her I wanted a fountain pen. I was six, and I’d seen a teacher using one and was fascinated by it. I got my fountain pen, a Sheaffer sized for a child’s hand, and I’ve been writing with them ever since.
Fountain pens are archaic, fussy, finicky things. But the graphic artist in me (I still draw and sketch with the “traditional” tools of pencil, pen and paper) loves their tactile feel. And they have one supreme advantage over all other handwriting implements: they will, over time, break in to your particular way of holding a pen…customizing themselves to your own unique handwriting. The disadvantage though is you cannot then ever loan yours to someone else, particularly if you write with a light touch and they with a heavy one, because the moment they us your pen it will never be right in your hand again. Ever. Ask me how I know.
They have other disadvantages, mostly being that they’re high maintenance things. You are always cleaning and refilling them…a process that becomes a ritual after a while. And they tend to form a fondness for a particular brand of ink, so should that brand become unavailable, or changes its formulation, your pen will complain bitterly in its own way (skip… skip… skip…) for weeks if not months, until you hit on a substitute it finds acceptable. Some weeks ago, having run out of my pen’s preferred brand (Parker, black) and not finding any at the usual places, I let a pen store salesman talk me into a substitute. I won’t name it here, each individual fountain pen is unique enough that what doesn’t work in one can work very well in another regardless of make. The pen that shipped from the factory right beside mine might adore that brand of ink for all I know. But it took me weeks of cleaning and re-cleaning my pen to get it to forgive me. Yes, yes…I promise to feed you the Exact ink you want dear…
It’s a Mont Blanc 149. I bought it in 1979 for a figure I was embarrassed to say to anyone and still am somewhat. It took me months of saving to be able to afford it…at the time I was a mail room clerk for a data processing company…and what is worse, on a scale of 1 to 10 my handwriting is 11 in awfulness. But my hands are finicky about their tools and my drawing/writing hand knew…it knew…the moment it held one at the Fahrney’s on F Street in Washington…that was The One. I go through the technical pens I use for drawing like crazy because they don’t make them to last, and the nibs wear oddly enough that it doesn’t take long for me to feel uncomfortable drawing with one. Wish I could find a good source for nibs for the dip pens I used to use…but don’t get me started…
Some years after I bought the 149 I bought a Parker Duofold that I like very much, and still occasionally use. But…the 149 is My Pen. I checked recently and the thing sells for Many hundreds more now then it did back then so I’m not sure I would buy one now. Like the Mercedes alas, it’s a status symbol. But that is not why I bought it. Materialism is when you want something just to have it…as if the having of it makes you too an object of worship. An enthusiast uses what they buy, takes pleasure in the experience of human excellence. You are not the worshiped, but the worshiper. It’s not commerce, it’s art.
Not Quite All The Way To Alcoholicville Apparently…
This last trip to Disney World found me hitting the Grand Mariner Orange Slushie stand in Epcot France and the Frozen Margarita stand in Epcot Mexico the moment I entered the park. The stresses of my life at this stage of it are making it increasingly hard to just…relax…and enjoy myself without some form of self-medication. It worries me. But the worry is itself becoming more and more vague. I’m starting not to care about my health anymore.
Anyway…I saw this graph which perked me up a tad…
My college experiences were So Different from most of the other kids… Who the hell even thinks they can down 10 drinks in a sitting, let alone that it would take that much for them to start puking their guts out? Anyway, the first thing I noticed about the graph is it Starts at five drinks.
So…I’m still cool. Five drinks and I am, not kidding, on the floor. If my end point is where everyone else is just getting started then I’m not doing so bad.
Women who went to university consume more alcohol than their less-highly-educated counterparts, a major study has found.
You don’t say…
I have often wondered about the relationship of intelligence to recreational drug use…and let’s be serious here, alcohol and tobacco are merely legal ones. Sherlock Holmes did cocaine because his mind couldn’t stand being without a problem to solve. I’ll go down to my household bar and humidor whenever Mr. Logical…
…this guy, if you’ve been reading A Coming Out Story, becomes too much to deal with.
The only cocktail I know how to reliably mix is the “Blue Glow-tini” I first had at the Disney World Hollywood Studios 50s Prime Time Cafe’. I loved it so much I googled the recipe the instant I got home. On thing I love about watching Rachel Maddow is her occasional Cocktail spot. One of these days it’s going to motivate me into fixing up the art room bar a little nicer. Add a bar sink and under the bar fridge and ice machine. The disadvantage of having a brain is the world makes you want to drink, but at least having a brain lets you do it decently.
Life Is A Process Of Growth And Maturity, Wherein We Seek Our Level Of Incompetance…
So I was handed the following books by one of my project managers today…
The One Minute Manager
Managing Projects – Harvard Business School Press
Leading Teams – Harvard Business School Press
Running Meetings – Harvard Business School Press
I guess I’m at that stage in the life of every little tadpole techno nerd kid who one day becomes an engineer somewhere and then goes on to become a senior engineer and then one day finds themselves reading the Harvard Business School Press. So I’m walking back to my little office feeling a tad elated somehow. It’s always Very Nice to know your employer wants to keep and nurture you. Plus, it’s good to find new challenges. Your brain needs challenge if you’re not to get simply old and tired and set in your ways. You just can’t let your one life slide on past you like that. Yes…this is all well and good. Except I’m walking back to my little corner of the Institute and this line from a song I haven’t recalled since I was a teenager suddenly bubbles up from somewhere in the shag carpet basement of my brain…
…Find out I’m the chosen one Oh noooooo!
Ever since The One Minute Manager first came out, something deep down inside of me would get a tad irritated every time I laid eyes on its cover. Any art you can teach in a minute cannot be that worthwhile. Is this why so many bosses are idiots? And now here I am reading the damn thing. But the Harvard stuff looks good actually. And…I guess I need to know this stuff now…
Sorry that my last post alarmed some of you, but this isn’t a political blog, it just looks like one sometimes. It’s just one guy’s little life blog…my small corner of the Internet when I can put up my cartoons and photography and write about this and that so family and friends can see what I’m up to. Life isn’t all wonder and joy, and I was very depressed when I wrote that. Thank you, those of you who write, for your kind words of encouragement. I think I’m over the worst of it now.
And I believe I understand better now, why I got so terribly down, and I’m working on a post about that. But for the record I took a brief weekend trip back down to Epcot a couple weekends ago and managed three things. First, I enjoyed the Epcot Food & Wine Festival immensely. Really…the food at all the little nation kiosks was fabulous. Second, I managed to drive past Hilton Head without so much as phoning my ex. I’m not over him so much as I understand better now why I need to keep my distance from him. It’s worse when they still want to be friends. There was no lover’s quarrel…I just got dumped but he still wants me to come around his way whenever I’m down there and it isn’t good for me to do that. I’m fifty-six years old and I’m only now learning lessons about dating and boyfriends I should have learned when I was a teenager.
Thirdly, I got to see a certain someone down in Florida this time around, that I didn’t last time. It cheered me up a lot.
As I said, I have a post I’ve been working on I want to put up here, before I resume regular blogging. In the meantime, I’ve been chattering away on Facebook, so you can look for me there if you want.
[Update…] I’ve pulled that post for the time being. My blog is a place for me to think out loud, vent, thump my pulpit…and even occasionally bleed in public. Just not too much.
A few readers here have asked me what’s up with the silence. It’s nothing serious…just life apart from the web. I’ve been real super busy with a major high visibility project at work and I’ve been putting in a lot of overtime on it. That’s "non-comp" time for all you salaried workers out there. But I don’t mind. Working at Space Telescope has been a dream come true for me, and the vacation package is so nice here I really don’t mind putting in long hours on something.
I have a bunch of stuff I want to talk about…but first, I’ve posted a bunch of new cartoons to the political cartoon page…two of which have been published in our local Baltimore gay paper, OUTLoud. I have a steady gig with them now and it’s been a real source of satisfaction seeing my cartoons in print. I’ve been published elsewhere but just randomly, whenever someone somewhere takes an interest in one of my cartoons and asks for reprint rights. This seems like it’s going to be a real steady gig so I’m delighted. Cartooning was the first love.
Here’s one I didn’t get into this month’s issue…
There’s more on the cartoon page. Hopefully, more to come soon as I get back into this. I have several other fun-er cartoons on the drawing boards, including the next episode of A Coming Out Story. Plus several political cartoons I didn’t put up from way back. You may have noticed that the last cartoon was from the aftermath of Proposition 8, and before that practically nothing for almost a year. I was just getting burned out on it, burned out on staring hate in the face week after week after week.
So I’ll try to post some more stuff soon. I have lots to talk about. But end of next week I’m going to disappear again for a while and visit Disney World in Orlando for my birthday and try to leave the ugliness behind. There are two anti same-sex marriage referendums coming up and it seems every time I look at the news I’m seeing anti-gay crap that just makes me angrier and angrier and venting about it here and on the cartoon page only gets it out of me a little. I’m at a stage in my life where I just want to bale out of civilization altogether and forget that I ever heard of the likes of NOM and Proposition 8 and so many people who don’t know me from Adam but keep screaming in my face that I’m a cancer on society…but they have nothing against gay people personally.
Basically, I got tired of how it was always getting in my face unless I had it pulled back into a ponytail. This is how I always used to wear it.
I’d forgotten how energetic the wave in my hair is. Without all that extra weight it just comes roaring back, even when I blow dry it.
I’m going to let it grow out again in the back and sides eventually, but I’m keeping the bang because I don’t like it getting in my eyes. The problem has always been finding hair stylists who know how to do long-haired guys any good. That was why I just let it all grow out some years ago…I’d given up on hair stylists and decided to just let it grow and pull it back into a pony tail when necessary. And…I wanted to see just how long I could get it to grow. Now I know…about a third of the way down my back. That’s it. It won’t grow any longer then that. I have this very fine baby hair and it takes forever to grow and it never gets very long. I was hoping I could get it down to my waist. But…not…
I’m Not Druck. Duck. Drunk. I’m Just Naturally Confused And Disoriented…
Via Sullivan… I find it hard to believe that the United States Of America drink more per capita then Cuba, Brazil and Mexico, and less then Britain, Germany, France, Spain and…Greenland…
Be interesting to see that broken down for the U.S. by state.
Probably not. But I haven’t been blogging as often as I have previously and it’s because I’m not sitting in front of a computer nearly as much. As I said previously, I’m finding I get a lot more done around the house when I’m not sitting down at my computer. But something else is happening. Something I was sort-of hoping would happen, though I hadn’t taken into account what it might mean for my blogging patterns. Slowly, but inevitably, my iPhone is becoming my all purpose communication – entertainment – information widget.
When it first hit the streets, the iPhone was lacking a couple of really important items in my personal information management toolkit: a sync-able notepad and ToDo tracker. But I have really great third party iPhone apps now that fill those slots. And as I get more comfortable with using them, I use Mowgli, my main household computer, less and less.
Last weekend, I had Mowgli off almost the entire time. I ran Bagheera, the art room Mac, to finish a couple of photography projects that I’d left on my plate for far too long. But Mowgli is slowly being relegated to finances and work related projects. I am keeping in touch with the world, and with my daily life, more and more with just the iPhone now.
And…there is this: My little patch of the good earth is on the cusp of spring, and I don’t want to be angry all the time. I read the news, in particular the continuing culture war on gay people, and I get angry. So I am avoiding the news.
This Saturday, I’m going to Disney World again, for a week. Mostly to just spend some more time in a place where it’s a small world after all, there’s a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day, and dreams really do come true. Better there, then driving across the mid-west and listening to hate radio the whole way. My brother said they still have their YES ON 8 campaign signs planted in their front yards of houses all over Oceano, Pismo Beach and Arroyo Grande.
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