Fun and Games Dept

Someone didn’t care that I was up until 3:15 a.m. Per his rules I must be up at 8 a.m. for tuna time.

He’s more persistent than Grandma City ever was, but I don’t think she was up in the morning for tuna.

As I type this first sentence of this entry, I realize that I’m probably going to sound like a cocky prick as my words flow onto the screen. It’s a good thing I don’t care.

I have always been a fan of driving. I am a motoring enthusiast. I love roads (hence my career as a civil engineer), I revel in construction, I relax by driving as far as I can, only to turn around and come back home. My farts smell like exhaust fumes.

One concept that I can not wrap my head around is the idea that driving is scary. I have talked to many, many people from this area over the years that are afraid to drive in “the city”. They’re afraid to drive on the “interstate”. Mind you, during these conversations they are talking about our city: a primary contributor to the “rust belt” with a population of about 50,000 or so and our interstate, one of the shortest in the entire country clocking in at just over three miles long.

As a teenager I was counting the seconds until I could get my driver’s permit. On my 16th birthday (which was a Friday the 13th by the way) my mother took me down to the Department of Motor Vehicles and I promptly took the written test and passed with just one question wrong; we filled out the proper paperwork and I was behind the wheel on the way home. It wasn’t my first time behind the wheel, I once drove home from a neighboring town at 14 years with my Dad in the passenger seat. I had driven a fork-lift all over the lumber yard my family owned and I had ridden motorcycles and mo-peds.

I reveled in the experience of driving, and per the rules of my parents, went through one winter on my permit and Driver’s Education before getting my license before I turned 17.

As I mentioned before I can’t wrap my head around being scared to drive. I’ve driven through Los Angeles and Orange County while yapping on a cell phone and snorting coke (totally kidding about the last two points), I’ve thoroughly enjoyed 128 around Boston at rush hour, I’ve bombed through Phoenix on I-10, I’ve driven the 190 in Buffalo in the middle of a whiteout and I’ve driven through Dublin on the other side of the road with the wheel on the other side of the car. I know my limits and I know the limits of the vehicle I’m driving. When I’m in the driver’s seat, the car is an extension of my body and I treat it as such.

So here’s where I become a prick.

1. Freeway on-ramps are designed for you to reach the speed of the traffic on the freeway before you merge into traffic. Don’t look back at me in your mirror with bewilderment because I’m trying to coax you above 25 MPH. There are exceptions to the rule on outdated parkways in the Northeast.

2. When you are sitting behind the wheel of the car you are there to drive. You are not there to shave, put on makeup, talk on the phone, counsel the children, eat a meal or make a bagel.

3. Modern traffic signals will not know to change in your favor until they sense that you’re waiting. Creeping up to the light at 10 is just going to prolong the experience for all involved.

4. The “stop line” at intersections are not randomly placed anywhere. Traffic engineers have taken countless precise measurements and have strict standards to adhere to regarding their placement. Just because you can’t make a left turn properly (cutting the angle short across the other lane of traffic) doesn’t mean that you have to make mean faces because I’m right where I should be awaiting for you to complete your idiocy. Don’t look shocked when I stick my tongue out at you.

5. The left lane on the freeways of the United States is NOT the ‘fast lane’, it is the ‘passing lane’. If you’re not passing anyone, you don’t belong there. That’s why we are spending additional taxpayer’s money putting up signs that say “KEEP RIGHT EXCEPT TO PASS”. This is just common sense. If someone blinks their lights at you (a common practice in Europe) because you’re dawdling in the left lane, don’t get all offended, you’re the one that is wrong.

Now, get out there and enjoy the driving experience. Happy motoring!

Earl and I are planning a little vacation the week between my spring and summer semesters. I think we are going to spend five days or so in New York. We’ll take the train down and do the Big Apple thing. This way we’ll be sure to be at GB:NYC5 (or is it GB5:NYC?)! (Gay Blogger meet)

Here’s a picture from last year’s GB:NYC. We had a lot of fun on “Bear Hill” in Central Park.

Earl and I are back from our trip to New Haven, Connecticut. Saturday night was the final of the four performances of the Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus; the performance was at the Shubert Theatre in the hip ‘burg of New Haven. Out of the four performances, this audience had the most pep and it energised the performers on stage.

The Shubert Theatre is a ‘union hall’ where they employ capable technicians to do capable, yet specific things for all the performances at said venue. This is the way these things work and in many cases the techs can be somewhat cranky; I was fortunate to encounter an easy-going sound man that was very content with me mixing and running the show after he got everything setup to their specs. (He was basically getting paid to make sure I didn’t blow the place up). The show went off nearly-flawlessly as far as sound production is concerned (there was a couple of microphone glitches that I was partly responsible for) but for the most part I was pleased with the sound of the show. I know the audience was entertained and the performers had fun so that’s what’s most important to me. I hope to have the opportunity to do this sort of work again in the near future, because I really like it a lot.

One of the songs performed in the show is “Could It Be Magic” by Barry Manilow. It’s a 1993 remix that I introduced Greg (the director) to back in January and he decided it to use it in the show and give it to David, a performer that hasn’t had the opportunity to sing a solo with the chorus before. David got together with Jeffrey and arranged the song into a duet (complete with choreography) that I have to admit was quite impressive. I have performed this version of the song at various charity benefits over the years but I’m going to say that David’s performance of the track literally brought tears to my eyes and gave me goosebumps. When Earl came down out of the balcony after the show, he remarked that “Could It Be Magic” was excellent and gave him goosebumps. It’s good to a performer shine when given the chance.

After the performance, Earl and I joined Greg (director), Bob (partner) (of “Greg and Bob” that I mention from time to time) and Nicole (Bob’s friend) and headed to the cast party at the York Street Café and Bar where we had a really good time. There’s a certain amount of intrigue that comes with being a relatively unfamiliar face in a city and Earl and I sort of revel in that. We made some new friends and look forward to visiting New Haven again soon. As always Greg and Bob were very hospitable. We like them.

This morning we met up with Greg and Bob (the same ones) for brunch at the same café before they went to New York (the city one) to see Gypsy while we went left for New York (the state one), which we call home.

So with Earl out of town on business again yesterday I decided to do something completely different with my bachelor life. After working my temp job for an exhausting five hours (how do these crazy people work eight hours a day?), I met up with our friend Marc. I’ve known Marc for a very long time. He’s a good guy and also the owner of the bar that I DJ at. We met up at the bar where we completely cleaned and rewired the DJ booth. With the turnover of DJs over the past couple of years, different folks have been pulling random wires, turning random knobs and basically creating random chaos with the sound system, resulting in a mediocre sounding audio orgasm from a top-notch sound system.

We don’t like mediocre.

When all was said and done with yesterday’s project, I can now say with a grin that things VIBRATE throughout the bar when the music is playing, but it doesn’t intrude on the bar area so that people can still have a decent amount of conversation. I am pleased and I believe Marc is as well.

Since we were having such a gay ol’ time we decided to tackle a few other things and before you know it we were tied up in a few projects throughout the rest of the night: firing up the video system for the bar, moving furniture out to the farm that Marc just bought, eating dinner out, coming up with ideas to promote the bar and whatnot. Before I knew it was time to come home and catch some sleep before school today.

I miss Earl a lot when he is out of town and it’s probably better to get out and socialize when the opportunity arises.

I can not believe it is Sunday night already. The weekend flew by at a remarkable speed and now I’m wrapping up my studies in preparation for the big Calculus test tomorrow. My goal is to at least pass the thing. I might just do that.

My head aches from memorising formulas and my ass aches from sitting in a chair too long. Weekends were made for bike riding, exploration and relaxation, not derivatives, limits and functions.

On the bright side, we did squeeze in a shopping excursion in which I bought seven pairs of jeans and a shirt for $80. Let’s hear it for Steve & Barry’s! And the clothes remained intact when I washed them. To make the day even brighter, I bought smaller clothes that fit quite well. I guess I’m not as big as I thought I was. At least not in the clothing department.

I had two nights of successful gigs and received several compliments on the music, though few danced. I guess people don’t like to dance when it’s raining. Maybe the crowd was odd. They liked the music though.

Now I’m going to curl up with my computer, pop in an Isis DVD and wait for Earl’s return from poker. Hopefully he’ll bring home some loot.

Today there was a mini-revolt in my Calculus class. Professor Frightful handed out a take-home quiz on Tuesday that is due tomorrow. There were several classmates missing from the class on Tuesday and subsequently they didn’t get the handout. When they asked for the handout today (we don’t have class on Wednesday), he informed these guys that he didn’t bring any copies of the quiz with him but they were more than welcome to pick them up from the folder outside of his office door, where they have been stored since class ended on Tuesday. The couple of guys that needed the quiz threw a bit of a hissy fit and told him that he should have brought them to the class.

I’ll openly admit that I don’t care the teaching style of this professor, but for the first time in two semesters I have to say that I agree with the professor. It’s not his job to babysit his students and make sure that they get their assignments if they miss class. The quiz has been made readily available. The professor’s end of the bargain has been fulfilled. I fear this scene is indicative of a problem we may see in the up and coming generation. I can’t imagine missing a class (going to Ireland last semester about killed me as far as my work ethic goes, but it was worth it) and several students in the class miss multiple classes a week. I can’t figure out the logic behind that.

I’m starting to feel rather obsolete in my classes these days. During Surveying today one of my classmates remarked on how quickly I can run a calculator. When he asked why I was so proficient, I simply replied “The savings are amazing at Ames”, meaning that I was an Ames (and Hills) cashier at one time and in order to do my job I had to be able to be quick on the cash register. My explanation fell on blank faces as these kids had never known a retail establishment to be without scanning. Back in my day (God that makes me sound old), we had to punch in the eight digit item number (at least at Ames) AND the price of the item on every single item that went through the checkouts. Store employees received incentives to be really quick and accurate with their fingers. I was one of the fastest cashiers in the Jamestown, N.Y./Erie, Pa. district. The skill lingers with me today. Nevertheless, I felt really old when I realised that these guys had never seen a cash register without scanning. Imagine their disbelief if they saw the older mechanical cash registers where you had to compute your own change!

I wish calculus was as easy to comprehend as item prices and making change. I’ve been working on the aforementioned assignment (20 questions) for three and a half hours and I still have six questions to go. I’m flinging around variables and derivatives and prime variables like it’s nobody’s business and I haven’t a clue as to what to do with them when they land. Even the square roots look cranky.

Back in 1999 Earl and I were only three years into our relationship. I was becoming rapidly disenchanted with the radio business and as luck would have it the city announced a new mini-mall opening in an old building that had once housed one of the original Woolworth’s. Those interested in opening a retail establishment in this mini-mall (which was owned by the city) would get a year’s free rent. Earl and I grabbed the opportunity to open “The City Pound”, a hot-dog based fast food restaurant that was basically an A & W without the brand name.

Owning a business with your partner of three years is sort of a make or break deal. There was a lot of hard work, some tears, a lot of screaming, a considerable amount of butting heads, different points of view and like-minded business savvy rolled up into this experience. The business cruised along for a year or so and on April Fool’s Day 2000 (after broken promises from the city and rapidly dwindling interest from the public in this retail venture) we closed up shop and chalked it up to a learning experience. (We had to tell our employees they were done AND convince them it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke at the same time). I went back into radio for a while and Earl continued doing what he’s doing today as he was wise enough to never have left his position.

It was then that we decided that our relationship could survive anything if we could survive that together. We agreed that we have different ways of approaching the same problem and while we both would get satisfactory results, we took different paths of getting there and since only one of us could be right, it was probably best that we don’t work together.

We broke that promise today.

Today I started a temp job at Earl’s office. They are behind on paperwork sorting and data entry and since I’m one of the fastest data entry clerks you’ll ever meet, and since I have Wednesdays off from school (they’ve been reserved for homework and studying for the most part), Earl thought it would be good for the family budget if I were to lend a hand in his office through the temp agency. Last week I took my drug test (I passed) and did the appropriate paperwork; this morning I reported for my 8 a.m. gig at 7:50 a.m.

Earl was proud of my promptness.

One of the rules of my working at Earl’s office is that I don’t report to him. This is a good thing. I don’t believe in mixing business with pleasure unless you can do it in an office with the blinds drawn, so I’m reporting to one of his managers instead. He doesn’t have blinds on his window.

Earl talks about work all the time. I know the ins and outs of his business like it’s nobody’s business. I’ve gone with him on countless occasions to find out why the burglar alarm is going off in the middle of the night. I’ve burned the weekend oil with him doing data entry (for free) when the inventory was behind. I know how his business works and I know his style.

Today I was able to see him in action, first hand for the first time. I can only say this about the experience: My lover is an amazing man. He cares about his employees (they even have a 9:30 a.m. stretching exercise for all office personnel), safety in the entire workplace (office and factory) is paramount and I can’t help but burst with pride to know that my husbear is doing such a bang up job. He’s a hard worker and he has one of the most profitable (and successful) plants in the entire company.

I am proud of him.

I don’t say that a lot. The phrase “I’m proud of you” is very important to me. I just don’t throw it out there for the sake of making a person feel better because to me that would be hypocritical. I’ll tell a person that they’ve done a good job when they’ve done a good job. I’ll tell a person that they’ve done a great job when they’ve done a great job. But to tell a person that I’m proud of them, well, that’s one of the highest compliments I can give and it’s reserved for a select few in the proper situations.

I think we’ll make it through this work experience together. Yesterday I quipped that maybe I should do some grunt work this summer to get buff. Maybe I’ll work out on the factory floor during summer break.

After a busy weekend in Connecticut, I am back and home and settling in with the books for the evening. I have two major exams tomorrow and a total of four major exams this week. Apparently a memo or something went out to all the professors at school that read, “synchronize your exams to apply maximum stress.” I’m counting the weeks left in this semester. At least the counting is math that I can handle.

The Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus gig on Saturday night in Norwalk went well but not as stellar as I would have preferred. The guys did a fantastic job (as always) of performing but there were a couple of sound issues including wireless body mics that weren’t turned on and a sound board that was a little cranky. I ended up doing some rewiring during the intermission. The audience was entertained but I was stressing through the performance. About 30 seconds into the performance a man came down to the sound board and waved a note in my face that said, “Can not hear vocals”. That’s always a cheery way to start the show. Apparently some people thought the lighting was too bright and they complained about that as well. Sigh. We do what we can do. It’s always a balancing act: if I turn the instrumentals down too far then the performers can’t hear the music and start singing softer. If I turn the instrumentals too high, then the guys start having a hard time singing over the tracks and the audience can’t hear what’s going on. During the pre-game the sound system sounded incredible, so I don’t know what changed. I blame gremlins. The final show is in New Haven at the Shubert Theatre on the 19th of April. The current plan is to have both Earl and I in Connecticut that weekend.

Earl and I took a walk along the canal in the spring sunshine this afternoon and talked about a bunch of stuff that partners talk about. It was a good way to relax and it was good exercise as well.

If someone wants to show me how to sketch the following ellipse, I would be most appreciative. It’s the last question I have to do for my latest round of math homework. I’ve figured everything else out on the handout, but the numbers before the variables are throwing me off.

9x² + 64y² = 1
121    81