It’s so obvious

It’s only love.  What’s everyone so scared of?  (Get Real – 1998)

I couldn’t agree more.  Enjoy some gay romance from YouTube.  Caution: 10-minutes long

Where to go?

With all the drama lately I’m feeling like I need another trip.  I’m inclined to go since I have a TON of free time on my hands.  Right now my options are:

1. Recife, Brazil
2. Various gay-friendly locations in California (Guerneville, Palm Springs, etc.)
3. Some place in western Europe, most likely Baio Dora in northwestern Italy.  This might include Venice or perhaps Geneva.
4. Any of the US states I have yet to visit (HI, AK, ND, WI, ME, VT, or NH)

What do you vote for?

P.S. I made a couple of changes in my sidebar.  Enjoy!

Note to self

This is the highway, but I didn't take the photo.

Before riding a motorcycle through a blistering hot, really twisty, canyon highway for 50-miles, be sure to apply copious amounts of sunscreen. 

TQE has ridden with me along this road, but I doubt he remembers.

*ouch*

Another day…

Another Republican sex scandal.  Amusingly, it seems to be the highly placed Republicans lately.

To think they actually impeached a Democratic president over where he put his pecker.

Friggin’ hypocrites!

Visit to Shallowland

The window on the back reads, "Just another family without equal rights..." A statement about gay marriage in California.

The past couple of days I’ve been in Los Angeles visiting a friend.  I decided to snap a couple of photos along the way.  The first was taken of an SUV as I drove over the section of Interstate 5 known as the Grapevine.  This is the mountainous stretch of I-5 in Southern California where it travels from the San Joaquin valley over the mountains into the LA basin.  Unfortunately you can’t see what I really took the photo of, but there is writing on the back window.  The car belonged to a couple of lesbians and their kid.

I dislike the man but respect the office he held.

While in the area I also managed to make my first visit to a Presidential library.  If you can’t figure out which one, scroll your mouse over the photo and read the bar at the bottom of your browser.  TQE often calls this President, “President ‘ketchup is a vegetable’.”

A former life

US Army basic training - 1996

Should I go near or far?

In light of recent events in my life, I keep coming back to a desire to leave this area and move somewhere else.  I’m not sure where, but I have a huge area I could re-settle.  The question is, do I have the fortitude to take the giant leap.

I’ve had an offer to move to Texas, but would I really want to live in the same state as our former village idiot leader?  I suppose it’s an option, but I could be more thrilled.

I also keep remembering that I have a nice nest egg.  Perhaps I cash it all in and move over to Europe?  Though if this was an option, I should have cashed it all in when I was in Germany recently, because the dollar has taken a pounding since then.  If I did go, where in the European Union would I go? Unlike TQE, I don’t have to have someone sponsor me so I can stay because, as he noted while I visited him, I could theoretically work in a Burger Hut over there if I wanted to.  In terms of US living standards, if I did this and stayed in the US I would have enough to live on for 1 1/2 years without taking one dime in, but I suppose in Europe it would be more like a year.  Obviously, location would have a lot to do with how long I lasted on current funds.

All I know is that I feel I can’t stay where I’m at now.  It’s a toxic environment and everyone around here seems to be o.k. with that and I can positively say I’m not.  I feel stagnated and know that there has to be something out there that provides a better opportunity than those things which I find myself around today.  If a person keeps doing the same thing they always have, nothing will change, so I need to change it.

I suppose I’m simply frustrated.  I find myself at a crossroads, do I take the blind leap of faith, or do I figure out how to do something less complicated?  I know I have an uncanny way of landing on my feet, so I’d probably do just fine wherever I went.

I’m kind of curious what my readers would do if facing similar circumstances to what I’ve written about lately.

Thoughts?

Youthful Haunt

The 1960's addition to the 1937 campus. The tables were added recently.

Obviously the last few entries have been on the negative side, so I decided that I would post a photo-heavy entry taking you on a tour of the elementary school I attended back in the late 70’s and early 80’s.  This is the second school I attended, the first being in the town I was born in.  I left the previous school when my parents divorced in 1978.

I had not been on the campus of this school in about 20-years.  When I rode my bike around town, I would wander down there, do a few laps around the playground, and then get back on the road for the two mile ride home.  It’s amazing what 20-years will do to your perception of a place.  The original portion of the campus seems smaller than I remember and it was very difficult to find anything original to the schoolyard other than some of the things on the outlying edges of the grounds.  They seem to have re-built this school after I departed in the spring of 1984.  Some buildings are gone (I’m speculating not earthquake code compliant) and the campus has more than doubled in size from 14 classrooms to 30.  This school has been built in three phases, the first building built in 1937 (building A), and then two more buildings built in the late 1960’s (buildings B & C), with the latest addition completed, I think, in 2006 (buildings D, E, & F?).  There is still a large assortment of portable classrooms that were added over the years that have not been removed from the campus.  The 2006 addition was SORELY needed.

Bronze plaque commemorating the opening of the new campus in 1937. An image of the original 2-story school house from 1862 is at the top. The 1862 school still stands today and is part of a state park.

This campus was built to replace the original two-story, two-room schoolhouse built in 1862.  My grandfather attended school at the old campus on the hill, and my brothers and I attended the new one.  My mother went to school in the city where we lived before we moved out to the gold-country of California.  The new campus is now as old as the 1862 campus was when it was replaced in the 1930’s.

I can remember each teacher I had, what classroom I was assigned to, and where all the campus facilities were located.  I remember that one winter we had snow (a rare event in the town) and I was assigned with a few other students for sidewalk clearing duty as the busses came in that morning.  We were allowed to sit in the boiler room, unsupervised, while the boiler was running.  Hot to the touch and everything.  Today, I’m sure the administrators would be hauled away for child endangerment  for doing such things.

Overall, I have mixed memories of going to school here.  I wasn’t the popular kid, and when I departed from this place to go to high school (we had no middle school in our town), I became the kid they stuffed in the lockers.   I think at the end, I came out on top though.  I ran into the elementary/high school debutante working for about $8.00 per hour in the local hardware store a couple years back.  I guess she didn’t learn that when all you are is stunningly beautiful, you have to keep sucking off the captain of the old football team to get ahead in life.  *shrugs*

The original campus playground. The trees were not there when I attended the school. The metal railing adjacent to the asphalt is one of the only original things left on the campus.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed the photos.  I’m sure I could have written a better entry, but I thought I’d simply give you all a glimpse into a place I spent a significant amount of time during my formative years.

OK, it’s only three photos, but heck, I ran out of things to say.  If you want to know more, ask in the comments.

Mud Puddles

Since I’ve been sticking with water themed titles for blog entries regarding the Days of CQ’s Life, I thought I would title this post as such due to the incredibly messy situation that has unfolded.

My brother was served with his restraining order today.  Then my mother, being the peacekeeper that she is, didn’t immediately tell him to get out, but instead let him hang around for two and a half hours, before he promptly fled with my grandfather in tow, to the local courthouse demanding they undo this injustice.  Apparently I gave my brother too much credit, because I thought he could read.  The order clearly stated where he was to stay away from, how far from it, and for how long.  Somehow spending two and half hours at the address where he is specifically barred was interpreted as that was the place he needed to be.  *shrugs*

My grandfather would like us all “…to get along…”  Unfortunately this, like clapping, requires a pair.  If only one person wishes to get along, and the other pushes, harasses, etc. the result will be nobody getting along at all.  When you defend the person that is pushing, harassing, etc. nothing will change.  Apparently my grandfather isn’t understanding this or is refusing to see it, yet it is clear to everyone around him.

Then tonight I’m informed by my older, non-restraining order bound, brother that the younger one called him asking for some of grandpa’s weapons.  The older one refused to give him any, but this has opened up yet another can of worms and another sleepless night.  The restraining order clearly states that he, “…cannot own, have, possess, buy or try to buy, receive or try to receive, or otherwise get guns, firearms, and/or ammunition while the order is in effect…”

The penalty for doing so?

He, “…can go to jail and pay a $1000 fine…”

Again, my younger sibling apparently can’t read. I’m not sure what to do with this one, if I call the cops and have him thrown in jail, my nephew gets put into the custody of child protective services or his mother has to be called away from her job to come care for him.  This isn’t her problem, but his actions could very well make it so.

Stress.  Gotta love it!

Anyone have a couch I can loaf on?

The ice has broken

Dear Brother,

Tonight while I was out at the movies you decided it would be a good idea to punch a hole into the locked door of the room I am living in.  This is the last straw.   I’ve tried to ignore you for several days now by not speaking, interacting, or otherwise engaging with you in any way whatsoever.  I simply don’t need the headache.  So when you were not getting a reaction from me, you decided to go violent and destroy property that doesn’t belong to you.  It doesn’t belong to me either, but you chose to destroy a door that has been in this house for nearly 40-years, all because you can’t stand the fact that I am using my fair share of the world’s oxygen supply.

The door had a lock installed two-weeks ago because you were snooping through my possessions which is something you have no right to do.  Had you behaved in a civilized manner, it would never have been placed there.

You have threatened to beat the sh*t out of me several times, comitted gay hate crimes, and threatened to kill our mother in various instances when you didn’t get your way about something.  You have left me no choice but to depart this home in 5-hours time and head to the county courthouse to ask a judge to enact a restraining order against you.  The temporary order will last a mere 5-days, but with your behavior, threats, hate crimes, and other actions not fitting in with a civilized society, I can probably get this order extended to a year or longer.

I’m done.   I won’t live in fear just so you can feel good about your homophobic self.