J.P.

Last night we went to the movies and saw “Secondhand Lions”. We both enjoyed it very, very much… one of our favorites this year. Definitely a DVD buy. Before the movie was a trailer for “Good Boy”, a kids movie about talking dogs from Sirius. Kind of cute, but I must say I found the talking poodle saying “Can we just talk about how pretty I am” in this wild voice most humorous. I can’t wait to yuck it up at work with the same line on Monday!

The remnants of Hurricane Isabel blew through Thursday night and all day Friday. Came home to a little bit of a surprise – a huge tree trunk in the middle of our lawn. Fun part? When it fell, it pulled the powerlines to the house down with it, ripping the line off the side of the house and depositing it in the front yard. I was glad to see that we still had power. The meter was lying face down in the shrubbery, but it was still ticking along. We didn’t go near the wires, but called Niagara Mohawk (our power company). They came today and restrung everything. Tomorrow Earl and I will be out there with a chainsaw cleaning up the mess.

Today we took a drive to Syracuse to get a few things at CompUSA. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the modem I needed for my computer. So I’m making do with my external modem, which explains why weather isn’t currently available on the site. I only have one serial port… and right now it’s dedicated to the modem.

Earl and I talked it over and decided that the DirecPC satellite connection really wasn’t worth the expense, so we ditched it. I’m back on dialup, which isn’t a real big deal since the speed was about the same anyway.

Since we’re not entertaining the satellite anymore, I was able to switch over to Linux full time here on my home desktop. Let’s see how this goes, especially during web page development! 🙂

I did a little research on “The Body Shop” products, and while they are labeled “Not tested on animals”, they are referring to the FINAL product. Before the brew is mixed together, involved “third parties” may doing some testing on animals, so there you are. The Body Shop – in the trash. So now I’m using Tom’s of Maine and Kiss My Face. Works pretty well. I’m a shaving cream connoisseur, what with a shaved head and all! I highly recommend “Kiss My Face”.

Earl and I have been groovin’ on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”. A fun daytime talk show again. Definitely TiVo worthy. As I’ve mentioned before, we were big fans of “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” back in it’s first couple of seasons, then we came back to watch her last season. The we tried the first season of Caroline Rhea – but, while Caroline had the best of intentions, it just didn’t feel right. I think there was too much Rosie influence on it or something… it seemed like Caroline was struggling against the format or something, I don’t know. She didn’t seem comfortable or confident. Ellen on the other hand seems to have everything under control right out of the gate! I hope that her show continues to be a success, Earl and I are definite fans.

Speaking of new television shows, what the hell is that Whoopi show suppose to be. The pilot episode was moderately amusing, but last night was just plain weak. I give it six weeks.

It’s hour-sister, Happy Family… same deal, I give it eight weeks.

I completely blew up Windows XP on my computer last weekend and re-installed it, hoping for better results before switching over to RedHat permanently. No such luck. It’s still sucking. As well as Direcway. As soon as I’m sure that we won’t be charged any cancellation fees for getting rid of the satellite, it’s out of here and Windows XP goes out with it. It’s not the I absolutely hate Windows XP, I just feel like the computer geek in me has progressed way beyond what Windows has to offer. I also feel like I’m sitting at work in my underwear – very vulnerable to bad things, what with Microsoft security flaws and such.

When I reinstalled Windows XP, I did install my old copy of Office 97. I believe that this older version of Office is more than capable to handle what I need to do. I was delightfully reminded of one of the features of Office 97 I absolutely loved…

… SCRIBBLE! I love Scribble! Unfortunately, she only appeared in Office 97, and you had to download her from the Office web site. I’m going to try to get her to work on my Linux workstation somehow… she’s quite cute, and can cheer up any cranky day.

I’ve been on a “dress up” kick for work. Over the summer, we tend to get to get casual in our attire in my office. I usually have a button-down shirt and khaki shorts on. Come Labor Day though, I busted out the long sleeve dress shirts and nice pants and I donned a tie. I don’t know what so important about Labor Day that I feel I must dress up for the occasion, but it certainly has helped me find a little more confidence. I’m trying to lead by example at work, what with the business attire and increase in confidence. I hope that others will follow suit. Oh, that was witty. 🙂 Work has been going along pretty well. It’s a busy time around the office with high school sports on the radio station. I’ve had a couple of special projects on the back burner that I’m getting around to. Everyone has been commenting that I’ve been mopey… but I haven’t felt mopey at all, just focused on the task at hand. I’m trying to be more professional in my demeanor. I mostly fail at that, but I like to think that I succeed once in a while.

I’m typing tonight blog entry on Earl’s iMac because I’m dinking around with my computer again. As I’ve mentioned before, we have high-speed (ahem) internet through the Direcway satellite system. Unfortunately, it seems to have left out the high speed part. I’m seriously thinking about going back to dial up this weekend, since quite frankly, Direcway doesn’t seem worth the $70 a month. Earl can’t connect to it with his iMac and it doesn’t work with Linux, and since my “technology pendulum” is STILL stuck in non-Microsoft mode, I think I’m going to dump the satellite high speed and Windows all together. Let’s see where I stand in a month.

Earl was away Sunday and Monday for the Eagles game in Philly. His brother has season passes and he invited Earl along for the season opener in the new stadium. He got back this afternoon and said he had quite a good time, even though Tampa spanked the Eagles.

Healthwise I’ve been feeling wonderful. I can say that I am still solidly vegetarian and enjoying every minute of it. While Earl was gone, I took the opportunity to throw out our toiletries that didn’t say “not tested on animals” on them. Bye bye Neutrogena shaving cream, hello “The Body Shop”. I know, Neutrogena shaving cream sounds really prissy, but I am extremely vain, and the stuff worked pretty well. Honestly, I like “The Body Shop” stuff better though. I’ll let you know how my complexion feels in a week.

I went on a little bit of spending spree last night and bought a new TiVo for the household. The old one has been slowing down a bit, plus, we’ve been having problems with our satellite connection and I thought it had to do with one of the receivers in the TiVo. Well, I hooked up the new TiVo and we still had the satellite problems, only faster. So tonight I did some rewiring and replaced connections and things seem to be working better. Let’s see how that goes.

My spiritual path has been taking some interesting turns lately. As I’ve mentioned before, I consider myself a “Gnostic Christian”… I fully believe in God and all that, I just reason these things out rather than just blindly follow what I’m told. For example, and you’ve probably heard this before, I don’t understand why Catholics think they can’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent, when before Catholics couldn’t eat meat on Friday any time of the year. If you ate meat on Friday, you went to hell. Well then they said that you could eat meat on Friday except during Lent. O.k., what about all the people that went to hell for eating meat on Friday before this “revelation”? Did they get a “Get Out of Hell Free Card”? Did the gatekeepers set up a “Fish Eaters Only Express Line” at the entrance to heaven? Of course not. People have to think and then believe.

The reason my spiritual path has been taking a few turns lately is because I’ve been thinking about spirituality more. I love Sylvia Browne. Or rather, I love her message. “Do good, love God and then go home.” It’s so simple. But it seems like she’s really turning the whole deal for a big buck lately. The woman comes out with four books a year at least. No one can write four books a year without a LOT of help. Either that or she’s ‘cut and pasting’ from one book to the next. And then she says that she can’t be “tuned in” to everyone, but she can tell a woman that wrote a letter to her office that she was a banished woman burned as a witch in Salem in the 17th century and that’s why she doesn’t want a fireplace in her house. What? Perhaps because I’ve never met Sylvia in person, or I’ve never experienced any of her gifts, I don’t really understand how it all works. I’m not doubting her abilities in the least. I think she has been endowed with many gifts and she really does teach a good lesson, she does a myriad of wonderful things in the world. But I can’t help but notice she charges a lot of money to do good. ($800 for a half hour? Whew!) And now she’s on this ghost kick. Let’s talk to the ghosts. Let’s see the haunted house. Wooooooo. Boo. Just tell the ghost to head home. Leave us alone, you’re dead, head towards the white light, everyone is waiting. Don’t make such a big deal of it.

Am I doubting my spirituality? Absolutely not. It’s stronger than ever. I just don’t have a price tag attached to it. Of course, I don’t say much about it out loud except with Earl. I think I freak them out at work… gay, vegetarian, Gnostic Christian, Linux user… sometimes they look at me like I just parked my UFO out on the roof and I’m pointing a ray gun at them. As I’ve mentioned before, people think that because I don’t blindly follow a particular religion I must be pagan. I must be a witch. I must not believe in God. And that hurts since that couldn’t be further from the truth. So now I just shut up about the whole affair and just try to keep a positive attitude.

Anyways, we had an absolutely wonderful time in the midwest. We left Tuesday afternoon, around 3 p.m. and headed for our first hotel stop, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. This was a planned overnight stay on our way to Madison, Wisconsin. I’ve been complaining a little bit about the lack of thunderstorms this year and someone must have heard my complaints, because we had quite the storm that night around 2 a.m. The wind was gusting around 40 MPH, the thunder and lightning was crazy, it was GREAT! Best part? The hotel fire alarm system went off and we had to evacuate in the middle of it. Since we were on vacation, we didn’t really care. No reason to stress.

After a quick breakfast, we were on the road. We ended up driving right through the middle of Chicago. Apparently, the folks in Illinois don’t really know the meaning of “express”, as we spent two hours in a parking lot on the express lanes of I-90.

After a bit of that, we finally arrived at our hotel in Janesville, Wisconsin. A nice little Hampton Inn, with lots of Harley riders since it was the 100th anniversary of Harley-Davidson and everyone was celebrating.

It was refreshing to see that Wisconsin is rather laid back when it comes to laws and legal stuff. There’s no helmet law for motorcyclists. You can walk on the street drinking a beer (apparently). People can talk on their cell phones while driving. I could go on. I find New York State to be entirely too stifling when it comes to that stuff. Government is too busy worrying about everyone else and making a law to cover everything. I feel that a motorcyclist should be wearing a helmet. But I don’t believe there should be a law saying that he or she has to wear the helmet. Government is there to be leaders, not baby sitters. Sorry about that little rant.

Anyways, Wisconsin is absolutely beautiful. It’s sort of like the Colorado, east of Denver (to the west is the Rocky Mountains). I really like the flat areas of the midwest.

We ended up eating at an Olive Garden in Janesville on Wednesday night. You know what that means. J.P. had a little too much wine to drink! Earl ended up driving us back to the hotel. And I had a headache the next morning.

On Thursday we went to Spring Green, Wisconsin by way of Madison. I picked up a modem for the laptop at CompUSA (much lower sales tax… 5.5% in Wisconsin, 8.25% here in New York!) and then we proceeded to Spring Green. Our first stop was the House on the Rock, which is an architectural wonder of a house built around a 60-foot chimney rock. If that’s not enough, the owner collected anything and everything and just about anything you can think of is on the grounds at the House on the Rock! Google yourself over to their website. It’s quite interesting.

After a quick picnic lunch at a scenic rest area, we proceeded to Taliesin, the estate of Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect. Earl and I had visited Taliesin West when we were in Arizona this past spring, so we were anxious to compare it to Mr. Wright’s “summer home”. In fact, it was one of the principal reasons for this trip. We weren’t disappointed. We decided on the house tour, as we really wanted to see the inside of his house. When Earl and I build a house, we really want it to be in the Frank Lloyd Wright style… words can’t really describe it. Google yourself over to their site as well. It’s pretty cool.

We headed back to Janesville after supper at Chili’s and walking around one of the malls in Madison. We decided to call it any early night.

On Friday we were on the road again headed for Chicago. We stopped by Earl’s Aunt Olive’s house in St. Charles, but alas, no one was home. We were hoping to surprise them with a visit. So we proceeded to our hotel. We decided to stay at the Sheraton near O’Hare. I could do some plane spotting, plus it was very conveniently located in that we could jump on the train at O’Hare to go into the city.

We had dinner at the Webber Grill, as we both wanted to eat on the street. Plus, I really like the taste of grilled vegetables. The waiter was taken aback that I’m a vegetarian, but he muddled through it o.k. Afterwards, We went and saw “Mamma Mia”, the Broadway play based on songs by Abba. It was one of the better musicals I’ve seen. We both really enjoyed it.

On Saturday we took the train into Chicago and were a couple of tourists. We went to the aquarium and the planetarium, and then walked along Lake Shore Drive to the Navy Pier. Had dinner on the pier as well as did some sightseeing and then headed to Hancock Observatory at the top of the Hancock Tower to cap off our evening.

On Sunday we headed home by way of Michigan, across Canada from Port Huron to Niagara Falls and then along the N.Y. Thruway. We were originally going to stay in London, Ontario for the night, but we were really making good time, so we were able to make it all the way home before midnight. All told, we drove a little less than 2,000 miles.

All in all, it was a really enjoyable, relaxing trip. Honestly, I prefer driving over flying simply because I like to know what’s between here and there.

Tomorrow night I take Tom up to his Grandfather’s (my dad’s) for the week… it is never a joyous experience taking the cat for a ride in the car. He absolutely does not like the car and will probably be a mess the entire trip. I’m not looking forward to that experience. Wish me luck.

Earl and I went to the New York State Fair yesterday. We decided to go for the entire day and ended up taking a leisurely, relaxing stroll through the fairgrounds. We visited all the barns, watched some livestock competitions and ate some good old fashioned fair food. You know, it’s amazing how much pride these youngsters show when they’re showing off their prized llama or whatever. Or the men and women that put together beautiful flower displays, or place settings. You can tell each and every person has worked hard for that moment. It’s a wonderful thing to watch.

We never did make it to the midway, but that’s o.k., because the state fair isn’t about amusement rides to us. It’s more about the people of New York State… admittedly, mostly Upstate N.Y. It’s rare to hear a New York or Long Island accent amongst the fair crowd.

One thing I got a kick out of. A young boy, around 9 or 10 years old entered one of the talent contests as a singer. His voice was absolutely amazing. He could belt it out like no one I’ve heard at that age, and his voice quality was impressive.

Honestly, I’m looking forward to the weekend as well because the great New York State Fair is underway in Syracuse. Earl and I go to the fair every year. And it’s always a blast. Being a native of the Syracuse area, I’ve gone to the fair all my life, and it’s very special to continue to go in my adult life with the person that I love. It’s very nice.

I have to visit every barn, pet every type of animal, go on a ride or two, cheer on the farm kids that are showing off their prize animals, people watch, sit in the State Park in the middle of the Fairgrounds, listen to some free entertainment at Miller Court (last year we caught Captain and Tenille) and basically just enjoy the fair. I’m really looking forward to it.

Earl got home from his business trip to Pennsylvania last night. He was quite impressed with all the work I had done on the landscaping while he was gone. I must admit that it looks very nice. I’m looking for more to do during the weekend during the times that we are home.

We watched the finale of The Amazing Race 4 tonight. Chip and Reichen, the married boy-boy team (that makes them gay) won! Yay! They were fierce competitors and they did a fantastic job. Honestly, I was torn between them and the last co-ed team, Kelly and John – because they did very well as well. It was great to see Chip and Reichen win though. They thoroughly deserved it. That’s one reason that I don’t lump The Amazing Race into the rest of the Reality TV show trash bin – because you have to actually do something to win. You have to be physical, you have to use the resources available to you whereever in the world you are, and you have to mentally prepared for the challenge. I thoroughly believe that it’s the only Reality TV show really worth watching on a regular basis.

That being said, I must admit that we’ve been watching Boy Meets Boy as well. You know, I’ve really been hoping that James (the lead guy) hooks up with the man of his dreams, even though a TV show is an odd place to meet your kindred soul. The twist of having straight guys in the selection seems cruel to me. I think America would be raising a stink of The Bachelor had lesbians in the mix and he had to figure out which ones were straight and which ones were gay. I think this whole twist thing on reality TV is stupid. Just let the people do their thing. If the ratings suck, then it probably wasn’t a very good idea anyways.

I initially wasn’t going to jump on the whole Bravo Tuesday night thing, with “Boy Meets Boy” followed by “Queer Eye…” (which is now being referred to as “QE” apparently.) But Earl treasures our together time in front of the television so I’ve settled down to include the two shows in our television viewing schedule (the other two shows include “The Amazing Race” and reruns of “Bewitched” in case you’re interested).

Anyways, these five fools are stereotypical gay men, right down to the witty remarks, coq au vin and spectacular grooming. But I have to admit they know their stuff. In fact, on Friday, I decided to take one of Carson’s pearls of wisdom and dress casually for work. Cargo shorts, a vertically striped button down shirt, open, with a matching T-shirt underneath. The openness of the button down, along with the vertical stripes, makes you look thinner. And I’ll be dipped… I received several compliments at work. I must look like a fat slob the rest of the week.

I must have made an impression… either that or the show is, because now my co-workers are asking me about all this queer eye stuff. How do my clothes look? Did I shave the right way this morning. Should I use more or less gel? What scent candles go well with latex paint. My child has an obsession with blenders, should I teach him how to make a smoothie… the list goes on and on. And this is where QE fails the majority of the gay population. It shows that gay men have all this extraordinary talent, when in fact, a very small percentage of us do. Heck, I’ve installed wiring on the outside of the bathroom wall with a staple gun and have been convinced it was “pretty”. I’ve worn clothes that make fashion plates crouch in terror at Filene’s Basement. I’ve had facial hair that seriously needed spring pruning. I do not have the Queer Eye. Am I gay? Of course I am, but I apparently skipped a whole semester at Gay Boy School.

One of the guys at work (cute, straight) is a little offended by the whole concept of the show. He claims that the gay community would be raising absolute mayhem if there was a “Straight Eyes for the Gay Guy”, where five straight men taught a gay man how to be straight, you know, punch a buddy in the arm, play football and survive a night out at Hooters. I commented that I wouldn’t be against that… just skip the Hooters part, and sign me up for the rest. But only if there’s a locker room and butt slapping involved.

My poor baby has been sick all weekend, so it has been a cozy weekend at home. I think he strained something when he was playing golf, because his back hurts terribly. He went to the doctor on Friday, who gave him anti-inflammatory medicine, as well as a pain pill. Plus, he had x-rays taken, though he doesn’t suspect that there’s a problem of that nature. So, Earl pretty much stayed in bed all weekend, or took to the couch and watched the PGA tournament on television.

Yesterday, I messed around on the computer most of the day, since it was raining like crazy. I got bored later in the afternoon, so I decided to change my look and shaved off my mustache. I think it looks pretty decent… I’ll have to share a picture when I get a chance. I don’t know how long I’ll keep the look this time, but it’s fine for now.

As I may have mentioned before, we recently had some landscaping done to the house. About a month and a half ago, the landscapers were here and, per our request, ripped out everything around the house (mostly weeds are grossly overgrown bushes). They put up 1/2 of our new retaining wall and then they disappeared for a couple of weeks. Well, last Thursday they showed up and finished the job. And it looks stunning. Earl and I are very pleased.

However, our budget didn’t allow them to landscape all the way around the house, just the most visible areas. So today I decided to be productive and continued where they left off. I ended up putting in a bunch of mums (it’s mum season you know) of various colors. The end result is pretty good if I do say so myself. One of the ladies I work with, who drives by our house every day, has been chastizing me a little bit because she’s one of those green thumb types and she thinks we spent way too much money landscaping when we could have done it ourselves. Honestly, I’m not one to go out there and rip everything out and start over from scratch. While others find that gardening, etc. is their therapy, for me it can be torture. Today I spent nine hours out there, including mowing the lawn, and I must say that I enjoyed it thoroughly. I have such a sense of accomplishment! And it looks very good if I do say so myself.

Earl is going away on business for the next couple of nights… I think I’m going to pass the time and continue my little landscaping project here and work on the stuff around the barns. He said I could use the credit card at Lowe’s, so maybe I’ll buy a few bags of mulch and such and make a party of it for the next couple of nights.

Anyways, I’ve been a strict vegetarian for 15 days and I feel great. And I’m weighing in at the lowest I’ve been this year, which is one of my goals. My reasons for going vegetarian vary…would like to eat healthier – I want to feel better. This is definitely working out.

I also don’t like the way animals are being treated on farms. I swear that some night I’m going to sneak over to the farm behind us and let all the cows go. I grew up on a farm where we raised beef cattle, and I think I’ve mentioned before how startling it was to eat something we had named a couple of weeks before. My sister and I learned our lesson quickly when it came to naming the cows.

And I need to shed a few pounds. In April ’02, I weighed in at 220. At 5′ 10″, this puts me at rather heavy. Christmas ’02, I was weighed 191. April ’03, I was up to 195. Today, I’m at 188. Ideally, I’d like to weigh between 165 and 170, but let’s see if I can get to 180 first. One step at a time.

The weather finally cooperated a little bit this weekend and I was able to jump on my bike. Yesterday I rode the back roads around the house and logged on 12 miles. Not a huge ride by any stretch of the imagination, but it had been about 10 days since I had been on the bike so I thought I should take it easy. This morning I went for another ride – 15 miles this time, but I purposely tackled the big hills. The hills that I avoid when I’m riding. I discovered a couple of things from this ride:

1. The view from the top of the hills I’ve been avoiding is astonishing. Breathtaking. If you haven’t had the chance to visit Central N.Y., make a point to do so some day.

2. The hills really aren’t that bad.

I was able to complete the ride without resorting to walking, which is definitely a good thing psychologically. I had a companion for two miles of the ride – a farm dog decided he wanted to go for a jog and kept up with me for a bit. Since I was going uphill at the time, Mr. Pooch was easily able to keep up with me. But when I started my decent (topping at 46 MPH!), I waved adios to Mr. Pooch and enjoyed the FAST ride down the hill. Honestly, that decent scared the crap out of me, but man was it awesome.

Earl and I have made this a maintenance weekend, mostly doing chores around the house and such. We did go for a small ride this afternoon, but a rain storm came through and Mother Nature didn’t really lend herself to sightseeing.

Last night we went and saw “American Wedding” – brain candy as far as content goes, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.