First Anniversary – Again!
Today is Kandy’s and my first wedding anniversary of being legally married in the state of California. When we first decided to commit our lives together, it was in September of 1993. We had been friends for many years, albeit on two different sides of the continent. (We had actually met in 1975, in Keflavik, Iceland – that’s fodder for another post!) Well, opportunity and relationships being what they were, Kandy finally moved out to California from New York a month later. We wrote words of trust and vows to one another. For us, it was magical – but private.
Then, in June 1994, we decided to have what was then called a “commitment ceremony” at St. Frances Lutheran Church in San Francisco, California. It was a beautiful ceremony attended by friends and some family, and was exactly the same as a marriage ceremony, but without a license issued by the state. We were officially “out and about.” It was a heady year and a half, because by December of 1995, Kandy gave birth to our first daughter, Katie.
By this time, I was fighting for domestic partner benefits with my then employer. There was progress being made, but it was slogging and slow. I opted to work for a SGI in Mountain View, who welcomed us with open arms and benefits. (I loved working for SGI, until their equipment was becoming obsolete due to the ubiquitous PC and its rise to power.) Two years later, in January 1998, Kandy gave birth to our second daughter, Megan, or Megs as I like to call her.
We live a normal family life, active in the girls’ schools, active in the community, and enjoying good friends – just as any family would. Then in 2004, the mayor of the City of San Francisco decided there was nothing in the California constitution that said that same-sex couples couldn’t get married – so on and around Valentines day of that year, many couples were married at City Hall in that town – Including Us. We thought, “Well, maybe this will stick!!”
It didn’t. The marriages were nullified. It seemed like it would be too much to hope for.
Then, something happened in California. I don’t recall all the political moves that “made it so,” but last year, for a while, same-sex couples could get legally married. We thought, well, maybe the state will get this right for once. If we get married, it would be extremely unlikely that the state would subsequently take away that right. So, on September 20th, we were up in Trinidad, California, and were wedded yet once again by a bonafide justice of the peace, and with friends in attendance, and with the Pacific Ocean as our backdrop.
So, in California, and in any state who would recognize our union, we are legally married. The Federal government doesn’t recognize our union – yet. Perhaps some day.
We got it right. It’s about time the rest of the government did!
Celebrities Passing
I grew up listening and playing my guitar to records of Peter, Paul and Mary.
I loved watching Laugh-In and Henry Gibson with my Dad.
I was fascinated by Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing.
So many icons of my youth are passing on, and so close together, that I can hardly catch my breath. Henry Gibson, with fellow cast members Goldie Hawn, Joanne Worley, and Lily Tomlin, made us laugh until tears would roll down our cheeks. His was a unique comedic talent. The gift of laughter was his to give and give. Henry passed on today as he succumbed to cancer, and is survived by three sons and two grand children.
Mary Travers, one voice in a trio of harmony with Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey, was a voice oft heard on my little turn-table in my bedroom – and in college. She had a huge, infectious smile and a vibrant voice to match. She was the soul of the trio, and she is gone too soon. On her website: “After successful recovery from leukemia through a bone marrow/stem cell transplant, Mary succumbed to the side effects of one of the
chemotherapy treatments.” I am very sad tonight.
And, of course, Patrick Swayze passed on yesterday. He tried his best in everything he did, and he did not try to hold himself up as an icon to anyone. He just lived hard, fought hard, worked against the cancer as only he could. In the end, it was inevitable that the cancer would take him away from his wife and family.
It’s funny when celebrities pass on – we feel a pain like the passing of a distant relative for whom we have been fond, but have never known all that well. But, these people have touched our lives with their art and their being. It is for us to acknowledge when we are moved.
Baffling U.S. Politics
It is appalling to me to see hysteria ruling much of US politics today. It baffles me – these vicious attacks based on perceptions which are not based on facts. It baffles me to see the large number of people who will take up a cause that is based on fallacy and ignorance. Tea Parties? Pu-leeze!
Does it surprise me? Not in the least. Decorum and respect have been forgotten in a visceral explosion of emotion. Protests with a lack of willingness towards true understanding. Fearing the dialog of exchange – seems that most would rather shout down opposition before they would consider talking. The scary part? This fever is fomented by well-financed, logical, shrewd, agenda driven men and women who will stoop to falsehoods and innuendo in order to advance their self-righteous cause. I think the pawns know not that the players are moving them around the board with ease.
I’ve thought about this all day, and I just cannot begin to explain beyond observance about what is happening right now in this land. I’ve lived through the 50-60’s Cold War, watched my brothers and fellow students go to Viet Nam, and I even joined the US Navy in service of my country in the early 70’s. I was raised in a conservative, military family, and my life partner is a woman. I guess you could say I have lived on both sides of the road. What we’re seeing in these so-called Tea Parties can be likened to religious zealots who hold with only one point of view – their own – as being valid.
And I haven’t even touched on those who cannot fathom that this country is being lead by a black man in the White House. It makes me wonder how we’ve come this far in this country, only to be held back by fundamentally ignorant people.
And why is there so much unrest? Because a black man, who is President of the US, wants to make it possible for all citizens to have health care, and promises all the while that he will not raise taxes to do this. How many presidents before him have tried to make such a thing possible in here in “the land of the free” that they have in nearly every other “free” country around the world today?
Well, put any label that you want on it, such as “socialized” medicine, whatever. In a country as rich as our own, medical care should be available to all of its citizens, and should not result in a family going bankrupt because of the catastrophic support needs of a father, mother, child, or any individual.
What is so wrong about that?
Some Thoughts about WordPress.com
So, I have been playing with blogging here on a free account on wordpress.com for less than week. That’s a very short time, but I’ve learned a lot each time I poke around. By far the most pleasant experiences associated with the start of this blog have been other blog friends who are so supportive of my efforts, and who have offered their help along the way. It really feels good to have you all in my corner.
Before I can ask intelligent questions, I have to understand as much as I can about the medium I am using here. So, I’ve been poking and prodding the various tools here, which are so unlike what I was using over on Blogger.
I am so accustomed to blogging with all tools enabled by default that I find the free wordpress.com blogging tools are too minimal to be of much used to me and how I want to publish my blog. Oh, I could pay some small sum to actually be able to edit their CSS templates. Big whoop. I still wouldn’t be able to embed a video or inset a simple javascript applet (the horror of it!) into my blog page. Instead, I think I’ll direct my attention to exploring wordpress.org.
Here’s to hoping…
Casting Call/Job Description Causes Ruckus
Having (mostly) grown up in the Pacific Northwest, I often peruse various publications from that region – mostly for sentimental reasons. Since newspapers are falling by the wayside, I poked around the Internet until I came across a publication called, Tech Flash, which calls itself “Seattle’s Technology News Source.”
It has somewhat interesting articles, but seems more light-n-fluffy than hard-hitting or technical. That being said, there was an article September 1, which brought to light an interesting job-posting on the Seattle email list, Digital Eve Seattle. The posting was couched in the language of a casting call, specifying that the successful candidate would be female whose age would be in the range of 25-35 years old. It didn’t specify acting experiences, but instead technical credentials and strong camera experience. The description specified that this female was to be in a series “webisodes.”
There are a lot more details I don’t want to regurgitate here (see the the article here). Suffice to say that the ruckus about all this is that there is some amount of disagreement about whether this is a job posting or a casting call. This would be important if discrimination laws are in play here. The webisode part to be filled is a technically savvy woman to explain technical aspects of various subjects. These subjects would be presented by her counterpart, a mom who uses gadgets, computers, and all manner of electronics in her daily tasks.
I think this is much ado about nothing. Of course it’s a casting call. However, the technical community is not usually one where parts are filled for the media. It’s not a fictional role, but requires knowledge and the ability to do technical research. Perhaps the age restriction is unnecessary, and could be dropped from the job description – auditions would weed out those who aren’t suitable to the production.
The employer (Wal-Mart, in this case) should have taken into account the forum on which they chose to put their job-posting. How many times have we seen casting calls on technical mailing lists? Like, maybe… never. Postings like this are often considered spam and largely ignored.
Obviously, this anomaly wasn’t ignored at all. I wonder who they will end up hiring?
Los Angeles Fires from Jet Propulsion Laboratory
This picture was taken on August 30, 2009, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
We live in Northern California – about 300 miles from the great Los Angeles Area. A friend of ours lives in Sierra Madre, and works at Cal Tech in Pasadena. She sent the above picture to me saying, “… this is a photo that someone at JPL took.” So we don’t know to whom to attribute the photo… 
Here is a little more about it, as Erin Lindsay at Cal Tech describes it:
“The attached photo is JPL and the fire. The Jet Propulsion Lab, while technically is in the city of Pasadena, is really located more in the LaCanada area (it’s just this little sliver of finger-shaped land going into La Canada — probably to keep the relationship with Caltech, since Caltech manages the Lab). This city in the picture is actually only the Lab. Pretty amazing place. What’s wild is that the fire started near JPL and threatened it Friday and Saturday, but now this same fire is 20 miles away threatening homes in Acton and Yucaipa. It went over the mountain ridge to those areas (may be 20 miles as the crow flies, but takes over an hour to drive there going around the mountains).
“The fires are VERY close to the Mt. Wilson observatory ( http://www.mtwilson.edu/ ), which was founded in 1904, by George Hale. That same mountain is used for all TV and radio towers serving the LA Basin. Bunch of cell stuff up there as well. They have a live tower web cam up there that we were checking last night, but as you can imagine, the traffic to it right now makes it very difficult to view (http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/towercam.htm). At 6:30 this morning they pulled all fire crews from Mt. Wilson, and the observatory staff also left. I was just able to get the tower cam, and am attaching the photo. As you’ll be able to see, LOTS of communication towers, including those for emergency personnel throughout LA as well. There is a story that was posted to Sky and Telescope last night that gives you stop action animation of the fire approaching via the same web cam: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/56266907.html“
Hello Visitors!
If you’ve stumbled onto this blog, then Welcome! I’m in the process of learning and getting used to WordPress – having used Blogger for about seven years – and finding there is a LOT to learn. I’m trying to keep the attitude that this isn’t really work… but right now it’s all in my head.
All the same, I’d love to hear that you’ve visited, even you have nothing more to say than, “Hi!” and introduce yourself. I’d still love to know that you passed through. I’m on Twitter too – as @tawandah, so send a shout out over there if you’d like me to follow you.
For a while I expect to be searching for a theme to celebrate or denigrate – whichever might fit best.
