It’s National Coming Out day today. I’ve told my story before and will probably link to it tonight. So to keep it brief, as I’m typing this on my iPhone in a bathroom stall at work…
I’m gay.
I have always been gay.
It used to be hard to tell people but it’s not anymore.
If you’re not out, tell just one person today, even if you tell yourself in the mirror.
You’re okay. And you will be.
There are two things that I need to mention in this quick blog entry.
1. Bump. This is an app on the iPad/iPhone/iPod that allows you to share things with other iUsers by simply bumping the two devices together. I tried it a while ago and it didn’t ever work right for me but now I see that the new Facebook app is suggesting it’s use so I’m going to give it another whirl. If you have an iDevice, please bump with me when I see you IRL. (Thanks, Erik, for that abbreviation which means In Real Life).
2. Bump. I bumped my head at work today and I have had a headache since but I have been feeling giddy, which could be due to the bump or to the fact of the aforementioned wedding this week. I don’t feel nauseated and Earl has been keeping a close eye on me so I’m sure that everything is fine aside from the few “Phenomenon” moments I’ve had where I started speaking in French and I tried to levitate the customer sitting in another booth at the restaurant simply by making a whirring sound with my mouth. To be on the safe side Earl has had me touch my nose a couple of times and has asked if I know his name (like I’m going to know that when we aren’t even married yet), but to be on the safe side I filled out an injury report at work. Perhaps I just need a hit of Tylenol with an iced tea chaser or something.
2a. Bump. Did people in the discos of the 1970s (no apostrophe) really dance by doing The Bump? I know about The Hustle, but was there a song called “The Bump”? I’m too giddy to look it up. Please note that the use of “2a” has kept me within the realm of mentioning two things quickly in this blog entry.
Thank you.
I think I got off my original topic.
As I was driving along the Thruway this evening, I noticed that every vehicle that I encountered, aside from the tractor trailers, had all of the windows closed. Since it was in the mid 70s, I can only assume that the occupants of the vehicles were enjoying an air conditioned ride as they sped along at speeds exceeding the posted limit.
On the other hand, I had taken the top off the Jeep and I was enjoying the wind blowing me all over the place and the sunshine that was filling the Jeep (at least until sunset, which happened right before I got home).
I’m not a fan of air conditioning. I never really have been, but then again, I’ve never lived in an area where it was considered mandatory so my opinion could be changed if we ever relocated to a warmer climate. But as a person born and bred right here in Upstate New York, I can tell you that for me, fresh air trumps air conditioned comfort any day of the week. I would rather feel the warm breezes from outside with a tinge of “fresh country air” over the sterile, cool air blowing from your local air conditioning unit. Enjoying the ride like I did today made me think of how things were before everything was air-conditioned, or as I like to think of it, sterilized for your comfort. Perhaps I hearken back to the day before air conditioning was considered a necessity, but I feel much more in touch with everything that’s going on around me when I can feel the breeze, smell the scents and embrace the warmth of the sun.
You can ride all you want in your air conditioned vehicle, I’m certainly not going to stop you, but I invite you to roll down the windows, set down the mobile device and feel the world around you sometime. It might make your smile broader and your heart sing louder.
I know it has the effect on me.
I’m typing this blog entry on the virtual iPad keyboard today, so please excuse any gross spelling or grammatical errors and email me if you need further clarification.
Work is a hoot today. Systems are struggling, training classes have commenced and conference calls are happening in all parts of the globe. People are coming into my cube looking for answers or a question (sometimes it’s hard to tell which) and I’m looking at them with a dopey grin and giving them something they want to hear.
You see, we are getting married is week, on Thursday night to be exact, and that’s where my focus is this week. Yes, work is important, but all I can see if that phenomenal moment that I thought would never happen and the long weekend in New York afterwards.
When I get back on Monday I will be a legally married man with all eyes on the ball in the busy game, but for now, my eyes are looking forward to seeing the other eyes I know so well as I say the words, “I do.”.
This blog has been in it’s second decade for a few months and the other night I entertained myself by reading some of the older posts I’ve splattered up here on the intertubes. (What an odd choice of words?!?)
Earl doesn’t really enjoy it when I do this sort of thing (the reading past entries, not the splattering) because I tend to crack myself up with my writing at times and I enjoy engaging in howls of laughter. It’s like a form of therapy for me and in this day and age of political unrest, high prices, unemployment and ending of the free glasses campaign at McDonalds, lord knows we all need howls of laughter in our lives.
Speaking of the therapeutic nature of this, I have to admit that I do find a bit of stress relief by writing in the blog and though it has taken a conscious effort to maintain the blog, especially in this day and age of spurts of wit via Twitter, Facebook and the like (again with the weird word selection). When I take my focus off of the world and into the world that I am writing about as I plod along on my keyboard du jour, I find that the knots in my head unwind a little bit, my left eyebrow cocks up as I concentrate (I just noticed that) and that a smile forms on my face, even when I’m writing about unfortunate topics such as taxes, the dismal selection of presidential candidates and DMV clerks that should be named “Donut Breath”™.
I noticed that my older entries were a little more outpouring as to what was going on in my head. Perhaps I was a little less rough around the edges back then and I didn’t think anyone was really reading my entries, so I would share some things that I’m not sure I would share today. Ironically, these posts seemed to be my better written entries. Maybe I had a little more time to sit down and write instead of sitting in the Jeep 60 miles from home on a daily exercise called “lunch hour”. There was a certain amount of therapy in those writings that I think I miss and I need to find a way to get back to. I sense a little more, well, something, in those earlier entries that I need to seek out again. I’ve always been complaining that I need to slow down a bit, perhaps I need to realize this and actually do it.
A couple of weeks ago I moved my habit of writing down my dreams from a notebook to a new Mac and iOS app called “Day One”. The transition has been good and I’m finding myself writing in it more than I expected to. Apparently there’s stuff inside of me that’s bubbling to get out and writing is an outlet for it.
Perhaps I should stop worrying about what people think about what I write and post (not that I think many read this anyways) and start just writing again.
I always enjoy finding something in my closet that I haven’t worn in a long time. It must be the remnants of some gay gene I supposedly have.
I was feeling very snazzy in my new found sneakers.
Walking into the kitchen, the look did not appear to be totally of approval.
“Where did you get those sneakers?”
My answer was simple, “Ames”.
“Ames closed like 10 years ago.”
“I know.”
They’ll be in style again soon. Until then, I still feel snazzy. I was even called a DILF.
My first time using a computer was when I was a freshman in high school. The school had obtained a dozen or so Apple ][+ computers and, surprisingly, our French teacher had written a program to quiz us on our building French skills. Part of our assignment was to sign up for some time in the computer lab and to run these skill testing programs she had written. They were well constructed programs, so much so that she was able to sell the programs to a software company who incorporated them into their Computer Based Learning curriculums. I always thought that was kind of cool.
The Apple ][+ setups were on the high end for the era; two floppy drives sitting side by side on top of the computer case. On top of the that sat the monitor; which was really a glorified television that was missing a tuner. The program that were to run sat on a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk. For some reason I remember sitting down to run the first program, which coincided with chapter 3 of our text book. The same book that had started out with “Michel? Anne? Vouz-traveillez? Non, nous regardons les television, pourquoi?”
HOME
RUN SPORTS
That was the first two lines I ever typed on a computer. In less than four weeks I signed up for more computer time and started writing my own programs. My first program emulated the cash registers at the local Ames. Cash registers were the first computerized pieces of equipment I had seen in action. Soon I was writing other little programs and then I got time to use the brand new Apple ][e which seemed faster, relocated the RESET key and had the capabilities of using lowercase letters.
I was HOOKED.
An Apple product in our home was outside of our budget, so I wrote programs in Apple BASIC at school and Commodore BASIC (on a VIC-20) at home. This probably helped my budding programming skills more than I would realise, because I was writing cross-platform and didn’t even know it. I always wanted an Apple ][e of my own though. Who knows, maybe I’ll find one on ebay.
I had some time to kill my senior year of high school so I signed up for two computer classes. One was Computer Programming. In that class we learned to write in LOGO and then in BASIC. I aced the class. I loved it. I always got extra points for making my programs more user friendly. For example, we had to write a routine that did city and state lookups by zip code. My classmates would write orders like:
INPUT CITY?
INPUT STATE?
whereas I would write
Please enter the city and state and press ENTER
There’s no reason for a computer to sound like a computer. Not even in back in the technological stone age.
When I write programs and/or websites today, I still strive for the human element. I know I owe that focus to Steve Jobs. I want the computer experience to be as simple and effortless for the user as possible. My endeavors get the job done but they do it in the most intuitive way possible. Using a computer, for whatever reason, should be an enjoyable experience. And that’s why I love Apple products. It’s bringing the wonders of technology to the masses in ways that everyone can understand.
I was in a programming class a few years ago when the instructor said something that made perfect sense to me. “A computer can do anything. If a programmer tells you it’s not possible, it’s because they’re just too lazy to figure it out.”
That’s one of the reasons I mourn Steve Jobs’ passing today. He brought the wonder and excitement of using a computer to the masses by focusing on the human element. ‘How is the user going to want to listen to his music’? Because he had a vision and the fortitude to pursue it, I have my entire music library in my phone or any other device that is smaller than an index card. I am able to see my lover, who is working 300 miles away, on my cell phone while I am getting ready to call it a night. I can type this blog entry using a keyboard that is sitting on my lap and a touch-based tablet-like device that had only been seen on Star Trek before five years ago. Sure, I go on about Linux from time to time, but it’s the fit and finish that Steve insisted upon that always brings me back to Apple products. Linux does some amazing things but it always feels clunky. Windows gets the job done, but there’s little in the way of style or class. Steve’s vision and insistence on perfection raised the bar for all technology companies.
And for that, I say thank you.
RIP Steve Jobs. You were a true visionary for the technological generation.
Thank you for your substantial contributions to our world.
There’s a little bit of excitement in the air at work today because the weather forecast includes a low temperature of below freezing tonight. Depending on where you are in the mountains, plains or valleys in these parts (we have them all), the low could be as low as 25F.
I think that’s kind of cool.
As I have mentioned before, autumn is my favorite time of year and this year seems to be shaping up to feature a beautiful autumn thus far. Last night the air was mild with temps in the mid 50s; I went outside for the sake of just standing outside in the darkness and looking at the twinkling stars and occasional airliner making it’s way across the sky. Okay, I peed in the back lawn too, and that was even more enjoyable because of the crispness to the air and the rustling of the leaves as they struggle to stay on the tree one more night before falling to the ground.
Tonight’s potential frost could very well squash the remaining pollen in the air that has a tendency to make us all sneeze, too, and that’s always a good thing.
I always find a certain magical quality to nature at this time of year and I think that’s what fuels my excitement for the season. That, and some home cooked chili, meatloaf, breads and cookies, all of which are in the plans for the kitchen over the next couple of weeks. I have my meatloaf plans as seen on TV and the bread maker will make it’s annual debut on the counter tonight.
If I can find enough time to come inside after reveling in the coolness of the evening tonight.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!
