i'm moving

My blog is moving to my brand-spanking new web site. You can visit it by clicking here.

vehicular groundhog-icide

So on my way home at lunch-time today I hit and presumably killed an innocent groundhog. I was traveling fast and he was running across the street. He didn't slow down or turn back. I tried to swerve and miss him, but my back tire caught the little critter (well really not so little). I feel sad.

say it ain't so

From an Ohio Lottery Press Release -
Say farewell to Cash Explosion Double Play, which will air its final episode Saturday, Sept. 30. One of the lottery industry’s longest-running TV shows, Cash Explosion Double Play will be replaced by Make Me Famous, Make Me Rich. The new Ohio Lottery TV show debuts statewide at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 7, in the same time slot occupied by Cash Explosion Double Play.

“Over the 19-year run of Cash Explosion Double Play, we’ve learned that players not only enjoy winning, but get really excited about appearing on a television show,” said Lottery marketing director Roderick Ingram. “The new game show builds on that excitement, allowing 30 contestants to appear on each episode.”

Like its predecessor, the key to getting on the show is the instant ticket Make Me Famous, Make Me Rich, which goes on sale Friday, Aug. 4. The Make Me Famous, Make Me Rich instant game comes in a $1 and $2 extended-play ticket option.

The $2 ticket offers additional play and prize value, and a special prize premium for TV show contestants. Players of the $2 game can also enter a special merchandise prize drawing that could ultimately lead to a stint as co-host of the show!

Cash Explosion tickets will continue to be sold and can be used to enter the Make Me Famous, Make Me Rich contestant drawing.

Since its debut in February 1987, Cash Explosion Double Play has remained a top-rated TV show in its time slot. More than 7,900 contestants have won more than $138 million in cash and prizes. Look for more information about the new game show and the wind down of the Cash Explosion game in the weeks ahead.

workout update

I've had a membership at the Tallmadge Recreation Center for about a month now. I try to go about three days a week. I really enjoying going on mornings that I have off or go in to work late.
Today was my personal best on the treadmill:

• 4.37 miles
• 64 minutes
• 13.37 minute mile (my first mile)
  
• 1000 calories burned

It's starting to be like a competition with myself. I start out thinking, "gee, if I can do 30 minutes that would be great." Then once I get to that 30, I decided that I might as well get to 45, then 45 minutes become an hour.

So now that I've been doing this for about a month, I think it might stick. I now have lots more energy and am sleeping so much better. And I've set some goals for myself:

• a 10 minute mile by the end of the summer
• lose 31 more pounds by the end of the year
• continue to eat better

strangers with candy...finally

Who'd a thunkit? Me interested in something to do with candy. But this is so much sweeter. After about a year of sitting on a shelf, Strangers With Candy the movie will be finally released next month. I was a fan of the show when it was on Comedy Central about 6 years ago. It is the story of Jerri Blank, who had dropped out of high school and became a "user, a boozer, and a two-time loser." Now she's back in school at age 47, and boy have things changed... Those Comedy Central episodes are now available on DVD. And just as funny as ever. You can learn more about the movie by visiting its web site. So, who's up for seeing it with me the first night it's released? Pizza, pizza, pizza!

we're in the room

Today the Senate defeated the same-sex marriage amendment to the Constitution. It's a relief, but we still have a long way to go to ensure equality for all Americans. As I was listening to the radio this morning, I heard a guy talk about this battle for equality. He wrote a piece called "We're in the Room." I hope that you will take some time from your day and read it. And maybe even pass it on to your friends and family that just might not be as enlightened as you. To all of you who support the idea that Greg and I should be able to marry, thank you for being an ally and spreading the word.

We’re In the Room
By Karel

This column is not for anyone that’s gay. If you’re gay, you can read it, you may agree or disagree with it, but it’s not for you. It’s for your non-gay friends. I want you to scan, fax it, PDF it, Xerox it, however you communicate documents these days, and then broadcast it to those who do not have an affinity for the same gender in a sexual way.

Our President, yes, OUR president, since we are all Americans, has again decided to gay bash and segregate a certain number of tax paying, law abiding Americans by threatening to desecrate the very document set up to protect freedom with an amendment to define a legal contract as being gender specific. But I want you to forget the politics of it for a moment. You see, in the President’s radio address Saturday June 3rd, he invoked the protection of the children again. We must save marriage for the children. OK, let’s talk about the children.

I want you to think of a love song, you know, a really sappy “I love you and must marry you” love song. For me, it’s “That’s the Way I Always Heard It Should Be” by Carly Simon. “Well you say it’s time we move in together, raise a family of our own you and me…you want to marry me, we’ll marry…”

Now think of a kid. Let’s say a 15 year old girl. She’s hearing these love songs, and singing along. She’s listening to her peers at school and her family and she’s bought in to the American Dream. She wants to marry, she wants a family, she wants to pick her wedding dress one day, she wants Luke Wilson to crash her wedding! But then, along the way to sweet 16, she realizes she’s gay, she’s different. It’s not her fault. She didn’t ask for it, she doesn’t even really want it, but there it is. But she still has that vision, that goal, that dream that she’ll grow up, fall in love, have a family, a house, the things we Americans call the dream, happiness.

Then she realizes that her government, her neighbors, her church, they don’t want her to have it. They tell her her entire life this is what she should have, this is what she should want. And she does, she still wants it, but with a woman now instead of a man, not 100, just one, one woman, she wants to meet the right girl, like the girl in her science class that said “hello” to her the other day and her heart just about stopped…as a parent, you may have wondered why she was so giddy that night, why she was on the phone for an hour with a friend behind closed doors laughing away…until she turned on the TV.

There, she saw her President, the leader of her country, tell everyone why she should never have the same things her brother does because she loves someone different. And then the debates start. People come on the news, on television, right in front of her, and they start debating whether she should have what everybody else does, everybody else that happens to not be gay. They talk about how most Americans feel marriage should be protected from her, and wonders, aren’t I an American? Aren’t my parents Americans? My country is against me? She hears how God does not agree with her lifestyle. But her parents always told her god was a God of love and forgiveness, that Jesus preached to the outcasts…could this be the same God? She sees Senators, leaders of the free world, all in front of cameras talking about her life, about how she’s going to be able to live it, and she sits, and she asks, “don’t they know I can hear them? I’m right here? Don’t they care?”

We’re all asking those questions now, each and every gay person in America and around the world is asking, don’t you all get it? We ‘re right here. We’re in the room. We can hear what you’re saying. You talk about it so clinically, and use euphemisms to make yourselves feel better. But what you’re saying is that a percentage of Americans who are different because of a natural state of being different than yours don’t deserve the same things you do. What you’re saying is that kids that want to grow up and love and marry only one person can’t if that person is of the same gender. What you’re saying is that theocracy wins out yet again. And what you’re really saying is that you are so afraid that one day the Supreme Court, or the nation, will wake up and see how unfair and unjust it is that they will, in fact, allow it. That one day, a gay person might actually be able to have some of the things a non-gay person has, and that scares you in to amending a sacred document and spitting in the face of its authors.

And you look in the eye of each and every kid that discovers they happen to be gay, not because they’re weird, but because if you believe in such a thing, because your god made them that way. Perfect, just as they are. As capable of love and goodness as the next person, as holy and sacred as anybody else. As loved by the creator as anyone else. And you will disagree with that creator that loves them and tell them as a society not only will you not grant them equality, but you have such little disregard for them or their feelings that you will go on national radio, TV, newspaper, town square or bar room and make it known and be proud of your bigotry. You will also say to these kids that things like war, balanced budget, port security, boarder security, national politics, dependence on oil, strained relations with the middle east, four million dead in the Congo in the last six year, failing infrastructure, failing health care and failing senior care are all things that are of lesser importance than making sure you know that you will never be equal to those that marry (and divorce) the opposite sex.

You can no longer talk about us like we’re not here. You can no longer talk about Americans and how they feel like you’re in that club exclusively. WE are as AMERICAN as YOU. In fact, we’re more American, because a true American would never touch the Constitution on such an issue. A true Republican would never approve of government growing in such an out of control fashion to want to amend the document for invasion in to personal issues and a true Christian would never approve of excluding two people that want to commit to a loving relationship from that institution but even more would accept that Biblical law has no place in marital law. Only a theocratic neocon struggling for survival would try to make this kind of social policy and Republicans, Christians and Americans are being used in the process. Americans like those you are telling, at age 15 or 50, that their unions not only don’t count, but are so detrimental to society as a whole that the very document used to govern our land must be amended to make sure they never, ever are recognized. That as Americans, they will always be 1/5th less human than you, to put it in terms those familiar with the Constitution will understand.

To codify bigotry is un-American. To do it in the name of the children when it will only hurt many children is hypocrisy. To do it during an election year, again, is shameless. And to act like those you’re bashing aren’t in the room and can’t hear your hatred is naïve. And now, everyone’s hearing it, and seeing it for what it really is. And they all see how ugly it is. This time, we see the man behind the curtain and don’t like the image. This time, we may actually have God on our side.

tucker

He may have irritated us a bit this weekend, but he is still a great dog. I think this picture really showcases his personality.

indeed

That's what I like to call him, "the current president." I find it difficult to say or type his name, George W. Bush. I like to call him "the current president" becasue it's a hopeful phrase, implying that his administration is only temporary.
-Sarah Vowell, New York Times Best Selling Author.

coca-cola blech!

Greg bought ($1.99) a bottle of the new Coca-Cola Blak. It's a beverage that combines coke and coffee, and it's really rather disgusting. If you need a good caffeine buzz, just go to Starbucks. Trust me on this.

songs in heavy rotation on my iPod - the pet shop boys edition

designed for the neighbors

This is the front page of the newsletter that I created for the folks in our neck of the neighborhood. Every summer it's someone's job to purchase hanging baskets of flowers for the mailbox gazebo. That person also creates the watering schedule for those flowers. This year it was my turn to head up the project. I thought that the small newsletter would be kinda fun too. The pics in the newsletter are some of the botanical shots that I have taken over the years.

Page two of my newsletter.

off my rear

Here's the mix for my Saturday morning power walk. Greg and I have been walking nearly every morning before work. That means getting up at 5:15am. Not a lot going on in the neighborhood that early. But hey, if you're up, come join us some morning. Click here to get a list of a lot of the songs that get me moving. You gotta have iTunes on your computer to check them out. And as my amigo Jason says, "If you don't have iTunes well, you're not cool." Couldn't agree more. So download it for free by clicking my link to the apple web site. It's over there on the right side of this web page under Links.

time to make a difference

Once again, President Bush is saying that the relationship that Greg and I share is not of value. And that he intends, for the first time in our nation's history, to write discrimination into the United States Constitution. Please tell him and your senator that that's just not right. I received this e-mail from the President of the Human Rights Campaign. My hope is that you will join Greg and me in opposing this divisive measure. Please take a moment this weekend or on Monday to call your senator.

This is it. With President Bush slated to speak from the Rose Garden about the "need" for the Federal Marriage Amendment and with debate starting in the Senate on the same day, we are truly in the final moments of a critical time for equality.

In an attempt to placate his extremist base, the President is making a rare Rose Garden appearance Monday. Anti-gay groups like the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family whined when the only voices coming out of the administration were the First Lady saying the amendment shouldn't be used as a political tool and Mary Cheney reiterating her father's opposition to the amendment. So, of course, President Bush is answering their call.

We're answering back. On Monday, we'll be on the airwaves and on the Hill. We'll be delivering more than 250,000 postcards to the Capitol making it clear that the Constitution should not be used as a political weapon. We'll be gathering a group of hard-working Americans to talk to the media about how Congress should be focused on finding answers to their challenges, not putting discrimination in the Constitution. And we'll be in the halls of Congress, working with Senators and their staff to deliver the best messages on the Senate floor.

And momentum is on our side. This week alone, the USA Today and the New York Times joined last week's Washington Post in publishing editorials against the amendment. Among other major outlets, the Associated Press, CNN and Good Morning America all ran stories on the fight. Over the weekend, expect to see more press - and more opinion leaders pointing out that this is purely a political ploy, and a discriminatory one at that. I'll be on Fox News' Weekend Live with Brian Wilson on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. (EST) making that point when I go up against Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

Yesterday on MSNBC, Newsweek's Howard Fineman said

President Bush has used anti-marriage equality rhetoric too many times and he's at a "stage of diminishing returns."

I think Howard Fineman is right. Anybody supporting this amendment now is out-of-step with the American people.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't flood our Senators' phones with calls. The vote could happen as soon as Tuesday, but debate may stretch it out to the following morning. Call every day until the vote: 202-224-3121. And call the White House while you're at it: 202-456-1111.

It's going to be a busy week next week. A big thanks to all of you who took action and encouraged your friends and family to join you. Your voices are key to this fight - don't stop making them heard!

Warmly,
Joe Solmonese
President, Human Rights Campaign

Vote No!
Please forward this link to your friends, family and co-workers to take action today!
www.hrc.org/voteno