Thoughts on Orlando

This is something of a stream of thought on my impressions after the Orlando Shooting this weekend. It may not make much sense, and likely isn’t my last word on the subject. But to be clear, this is not some part of international Jihad or terrorism. This is homophobia at it worst, nothing more nor less, and we need to call it that.

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Photos from the San Francisco Trip

We went again to San Francisco two weekends ago for the Gay Men’s Chorus Concert, Tales of Our City, which included Armisted Maupin speaking about his adventures in San Francisco in 70s, 80s, and 90s, and his remembrances of people like Harvey Milk and other gay leaders of the time.

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My New Nissan Rogue Sucks

There, I said it. Back in late August I traded in my 2005 Nissan Pathfinder for a supposedly new 2015 Rogue. I based it on test drives and comparisons with a variety of similar crossovers, and reading reviews on several auto websites, combined with the price I got it for. I was fairly pleased, but in the past two months a number of critical components have failed, and Nissan and the dealership are unconcerned and actually fairly rude about it.

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Big Talk About Terrorists

Suddenly, everyone’s a warrior in the war against terror. That is of course only the terrorists attacks that 1. Don’t involve white male American terrorists, and/or 2. Aren’t likely to actually happen in the first place. Take inspiration for the protection of the homeland from some Facebook posts from early this morning. Here you’ll see the batshittery we’ve devolved into in this country. It started with this fairly incoherent post, which I mostly just ignored after assuming the person who wrote it was either high, drunk, or both.

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City of Tampa Construction Services – Epic Fail

I’ve got to tell you that the City of Tampa’s Construction Services appears to be an epic failure. I’ve discovered an amazing disregard for the Citizen’s of Tampa; a significant lack of enthusiasm for enforcing even the most basic codes; and all of that at a fairly high level within the organization.

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Photos from our 2013 San Francisco Trip

We went to San Francisco in June during Pride Weekend, and it was an adventure. Best time for me was getting to, for the second time, hear the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. This performance was “Harvey Milk 2013” featuring the world premier of I am Harvey Milk. It was spectacular.

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Pictures From Washington

I was in Washington most of last week on business. Lay flew in Friday afternoon, and we spent the weekend touring. We did most of touristy things including the Air and Space Museum out near Dulles that Friday afternoon. Saturday and Sunday were spent mostly downtown around the Mall. I’d not been to the Air and Space Museum so that was cool. This was Lay’s first trip at all.

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Consider Me A Native of El Bethel

Since the Mayor gave Newt (serial adulterer, family values, thrice married, marriage is between one man and three women) Gingrich a key to the City today, consider me a native of El Bethel. Bad enough my Old Home State is trying to write discrimination into the State’s Constitution, now they are turning over the key to one of the sleeziest people to ever come out of Washington, D.C. And all this on the day he was ending his campaign anyways.

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Barbershops

I went to get a haircut Wednesday morning at the Gandy Barbershop. It’s owned by Steve, but Tony, a British guy, is the barber I use. When I was paying and getting ready to leave he showed me a framed article by a local Tampa Tribune columnist, Steve Otto, which talked about Tony and the barbershop. I got me thinking about my earliest memories of going to the barbershop. Of course I know I went before we moved to Kings Mountain, but the first memory I have of going was to Central Barbershop right downtown on Mountain Street, beside Griffin’s Drug Store.

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