Bill and Kent's Place

Checking In...

Hi everyone. I haven't written for a while so I thought I'd make an entry just let everyone know I'm still alive.

A lot has changed since my last entury. My health is good and I still work for the same company, although it's been reacquired by another company and a lot has changed at work, but basically I have my job I am it's a little different than it was, but it's not that bad.

Kent is in South Africa for a month. He left a couple weeks ago. I think the worst part of it is he got over to South Africa and found out that his cell phone doesn't work, even though it's on the international plan, and the places he visits don't have Internet, except very very spotty places that don't have very reliable Internet. So, we have actually only been able to communicate through e-mail for the first few days and I've heard nothing from him since, so I really don't expect to hear from him until he comes back home.

We will then have a couple of days together, and then I'm off for a week in Idaho to see friends and family. I usually go to Idaho in June, when it's a bit cooler. August is probably the hottest month, but I'm going to a celebration of my aunt and uncle's 60th wedding anniversary on August 4th. Then, I leave very very early the next day around 5:00 in the morning, to come back home in Connecticut. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again I hope everyone's there and together so we can have a family reunion. I'm really not that close to my family. I'm trying like hell to get there, but I'm kind of fighting an uphill battle. I think a lot of it is that I haven't known them for years. I've been away for so long and I've been coming back to Idaho every year for the last five-six years every year trying to rekindle relationships. I guess I've kind of come to the conclusion that a lot of those relationships are gone, except it's kind hard to get my head around that and to let it go. I still have good friends there and a cousin that is very very close to me, and my brother, so hopefully it will go well.

And that's about it. I have nothing else to report. I can't wait for Kent to get back and hope you all are doing very well, if anyone is still reading this is all.

Nathan Hale Cemetery

One of the things that is so interesting about living in New England is the fact that there is so much American history here. I know that most New Englanders take that for granted because they grew up here, but when you come from a state in the west, like Idaho, it's quite interesting to see a gravestone that will state that the person was buried at the age of 22, in 1678.

I spent yesterday at Coventry Lake (real name is Wangumbaug Lake) just relaxing for a day. After a couple of hours, I drove over to the Nathan Hale Cemetery, where Nathan Hale is buried. Here are a few photos of the day.

They aren't Nikon quality, but not bad for the iPhone camera that I had with me.

Our Anniversary Today

Today is our 37th anniversary to being together, our first anniversary of being married, and Kent's birthday. A lot to celebrate.

We started last night by going to a concert featuring renowned violinist Gil Shaham. It was a fantastic concert and I'm a huge fan of his.

Tonight, we are going to Cavey's Restaurant for a nice celebration dinner.

Remembering 9/11

I've tried to come up with words to express how I feel about today, on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Words fail me. There's really nothing I can say that hasn't already been said on millions of blog posts around the world. So instead, I'm going to share what we did on this day of remembrance.

We had our usual weekend breakfast of bagels, accompanied by cream cheese, capers, salmon, onion, and fresh tomatoes. It's become somewhat of a tradition for us. Sometimes I will make a frittata or something along that line, but most often, we will have our bagels. We rested a bit, and then went to Valley Falls Park. There is a nice lake there, and walking trails everywhere. We hiked up to the walking path, an old railroad track that has been converted into a nature trail, and found that there was a bike marathon in progress. As we walked along this path, there were many bikes passing us. Kent said that they would end up in Willimantic at a brew pub, and celebrate with what the brew the pub had to offer. Embracing life.

We, on the other hand, walked on the path for aways, and then took a trail down through the forest until we hit the creek below, that eventually feeds into the lake. Along the way, we took notice of all the life around us; the ferns, the wild mushrooms, the water. And when we got back to the lake, we noticed a few dogs that were taking pleasure in swimming in the lake as their owners threw sticks out into the water for them to retrieve. Embracing life.

On our way back around the lake, we went past a few fishermen who were fishing in the lake. One said, "What time is it?" The other answered, "About 1:30." The other replied, "That explains why I'm getting hungry." The other replied in a laughter, "You got that right!".  Nothing special. Just people living out their lives in harmony with simple pleasures. Embracing life.

So I suppose you could say we spent our day embracing life, and remember those who no long have life. I remember vividly 9/11, and the horror of that day. I was working from home, and the news was on. I remember calling Kent to tell him that some plane had hit the first tower, and while I was on the phone, I went into shock as I saw in real time the second plane hit the second tower. There was silence. I tried to explain to Kent what was happening, but all that came out was, "On my God, I think we are being attacked."

So many years later, and countless lives lost, we spent our day surrounded by life, and embracing it. And remembering the sacrifice that so many in our country have made; the civilians who lost their lives on this day ten years ago, and our soldiers who severed their country valiantly in the years that followed.

We spent our day embracing life. This is the best tribute I know to those who are no longer with us. This is what they would want us to do, I think.

Embrace life.

Small Miracles

I started playing the violin again tonight. I haven't played in twenty years. I was like I was a new student of music. And yet, not. I played just some scales, concentrating on placement, bow arm, tension, with no vibrato. Vibrato is gone, but it will come in time. It is the least of the problems involved. It was rough, but after playing scales for thirty minutes, I could start to feel my fingers and bow arm loosing up a bit. And, the sound improved tremendously. I have a lot of work to do before playing anything of substance.

My mind is sharp. I haven't forgotten technique, which is good because that's the really hard part to learn. It's just that my physical body can no longer do what I would like it to do, yet. I have to be patient.

Finally, I started putting things away, the bow, cleaning the strings of rosin. Most importantly, I took my 1750 Gagliano violin in my arms, took a moment of silence, and simply said out of respect, "I'm sorry for this. Maybe if you are patient with me, we can once again sing together."

Interesting Restaurants

I love eating out and exploring new cultures. But I just can't get my head around seeing "beef intestines" on a menu. You kind of lose me there.

Single Living

Kent is in South Africa again. This time seems more difficult than the other times. He'll be there for three and a half weeks. He left last Thursday. On top of that, his phone doesn't work and there's very little that he can do to keep in touch. I feel like half of me is gone. I probably need to just bury myself in work and keep my mind occupied the best I can.

This weekend was rough, but two friends visited last night and we all went out to dinner in Hartford. That was a nice diversion. It was nice of them to come see me.

It's stressful times at work. My company was acquired by another company. And since I'm in IT, my job is now to facilitate the restructuring of our computer network. It's exciting in a way. Some of the load will be taken off me to keep critical functions going. And I will facilitate the transfer of those functions. For a company, it's healthy to reexamine how you've done things for so long. And whether we like it or not, that's going to happen. People are creatures of habit, so most don't deal with change very well. But I'm trying to embrace it. So next Tuesday I will spend my day in Boston talking about all the things that have to get done as this is all happening.

I've been thinking today about what was said at dinner last night. I always thought of myself as a pretty normal looking guy (i.e. more straight than gay looking). But I was told last night that I am apparently quite gay looking, both in appearance and the way I talk. I was told that I talk with a slight lisp. I can't hear it or change it. It's not that I don't like what I am, which is a good thing since I have no control over it. But it's made me wonder if everyone who talks to me, both personal and work life, is thinking, "...he's so gay...", and that's all they see. They don't see me. Am I just a stereotype of a gay man? Why do we have to have a label for everything? Why do we put people into categories? Will my new company still want me because of this, since I apparently project "gay" in my appearance and/or speech patterns? Is this why my neighbor looks at me the way he does... like I'm an alien of some sort? It makes me want to not talk to people and withdraw. It's as if ten seconds after someone talks to me, they are thinking, "Yeah, he's gay.", or worse.

I guess I just got to thinking about it all when my friends told me about how I talk, and how I look. It gets me down. I guess I now know why so many of the straight guys at work will only talk to me when they absolutely need my help with something IT related. I don't bond with any of them, and yet, I see them getting together for drinks after work, etc. But not me. I'm never asked. I think it's because of all of these external things that I have no control over. It sucks.

Slow Sunday

Very slow Sunday here.  We have about 3 feet of snow here, but it's slowly melting. That's of course before we get the next storm on Tuesday-Wednesday of this coming week.

Work is going ok. I'm actually learning a lot about virtualization. My department is a staff of one (that's me). I basically sit in this big room and with the help of a few outside people, make it all work. It's ok. It's a good way to concentrate on network issues and get caught up on my music listening. And occasionally, when I want to let the world in, I will hook up my XM radio and listen to political commentary. I seem to do that less and less though these days.

The State of the Union Address was "ok". I'd give it a B+, but Obama left out a bunch of things I would have at least touched on, like mortgage losses, jobless people, and the like. And what was up with Michele Bachmann? Aside from the fact that the Founding Fathers did NOT rid our nation of slavery (yeah, she really said that. I guess she didn't realize that many of them were slave owners), she was not looking into the camera. It was kind of freaky. Only other tip I can give her, aside from NOT SPEAKING, is to use way less eye liner. She looked like she just walked in off the street, and not in a good way!

Other concerns on Bill's mind...  the ice cycles hanging off our rain spouts are like ten feet long now. They are beautiful when the sun disperses light through them in an array of colors. But I'm wondering if I should somehow get them them off the gutters. That has to be a lot of weight.

Finally, my thoughts are for the people of Uganda who are still hunting down gay people, and putting them in prison. A bill is pending that would in some cases put some to death. It's infamously called "kill the gays" bill. And all of this came after U. S. Evangelicals went to Uganda to teach them that gay people recruit and rape children and are evil. Last week, one of the leading gay activists for human rights was brutally beaten to death. The U. S. Evangelicals simply said that the act was "horrible". They would know. They planted the seed for this to happen.

I'm also thinking of Egypt. I hope they fine their way.

All of this makes me thankful that I live a small but important life out in the country with my wonderful husband. I'm so lucky.

Teeth

If evolution was... more evolved, it would figure out how to get us through life without teeth. I hate my teeth right now. They are like cars. They will function for a long time, even if you take care of them with visits to the car dealer (or dentist in this case), and then BAM! All the sudden all hell breaks loose. This has been the SECOND root canal in ONE WEEK on two molars right next to each other, because one of them became infected, and then infected the nerve tissue. I'm so tired of it. Kent is out of town. I'm home alone and my jaw is starting to feel like someone punched me. My dentist sent me to an oral surgeon this afternoon. I told him that I was one of those patients who had a very low threshold for stress and pain in the dentist office. OH MY GOD, I show up there and they don't have nitrous!! How on earth can a dentist exist without nitrous in 2010? He said, "This is a pain-free office. Don't worry my friend." (he was foreign, but as someone who has been stereotyped all my life, I don't want to stereotype). He drilled, and hit a nerve (quite literally), and in zero to three seconds, I went into diva mode and pulled a Marilyn Horne on him and said, "This isn't f&*@*#g working for me!", as my arm instinctively belted him to one side of the room. Silence filled the office. He gave me more shots - MANY more shots. I'm going to take a long hot shower, and take what the doctor gave me... VICODIN. The label says, "Take 1 every 6 hours for pain." I'll snuggle up with my cats tonight and take 2. Cheers!

This and That

Things are going well generally speaking. I had the strangest dreams last night. The first one was about these gigantic bugs that surrounded our neighborhood. They were like flying locusts the size of baseballs. They would land on you, sting you with their jaws, and then start sucking blood out. Maybe I've been watching too many vampire-themed movies lately. I then woke up in a frenzy.

I eventually got back to sleep, and in my second dream, I was married to singer Sarah Vaughn. We traveled together and the music was incredible. What a weird combination.

I've been tracking this nut case with the burning of Korans. Well, even though he called it off because "God told him to", protests around the world have now turned deadly, according to CNN. I hope he's happy now. This from CNN....

At least two people have been killed on a third day of protests here in Afghanistan against a Florida pastor and his planned Koran burning. Although the burning did not take place, the damage has already been done. This time it took place in Logar Province, the province just south of the capital province of Kabul in a district called Baraki Barak

The spokesperson for the governor there said around 600 people gathered around the district governor and wanted to burn it down. That's when the Afghan national security forces came in to try to tame the crowd, instead shooting into it, killing those two and injuring at least four others, and although the burnings did not take place, it seems as though this Florida pastor played straight into the hands of the insurgency, because the insurgents here in Afghanistan will use it to continue to recruit Muslims and Afghans for many months to come.

Way to go pastor!

And about this mosque that they are going to build close to "ground zero", it's not a mosque. It's a community center. And in the same area, there is a strip club. So, for all the religious freaks who are so hot and bothered about how wrong it is to have a Muslim community center so close to "ground zero", you might want to start with the hypocrisy of having a strip club so close to "ground zero". Why doesn't that upset your religious sensibilities?

And if you really want to get all fired up over Muslims and their mosques, did you realize that there is a real mosque in the Pentagon? It's been there for a long time and the Pentagon was also hit, just like "ground zero". Yet, I hear nothing about that.

I think it's time we stop all this nonsense, and focus on who our true enemies are. It's not Muslims. It's terrorists, and they come in all religions. Yes, even Christians! THINK ABOUT IT.

Tomorrow, we start the process of marriage. I'm calling our town clerk on how to get a marriage license. We will be married on Kent's birthday, October 15th.