As ***Dave notes, it’s getting more than a tad embarrassing at how we in the US are behind other nations when it comes to our tolerance (or lack thereof) for gay marriage and other forms of civil union. The article also notes that the Church of England “provoked fury among traditionalist Anglicans worldwide by allowing gay priests to register their civil partnerships, as long as they remain celibate.” So that’s at least a step in the right direction (in my opinion), and although I wish they hadn’t put the celibacy restriction in. Frankly, though, who is going to go to…
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David’s return from the Great White North was accomplished and I picked him up from O’Hare’s KissN’Fly meeting point last night after work. He noted that it was much colder in Chicago than it was in Canada. Figures. We amused ourselves by sending text messages back and forth while waiting for the “Kiss” part: David: I have landed. 5 minutes to the gate. I will call when i am on the train. Hungery? Ginny:[picture of bright yellow arcade covering the KissN’Fly, which serves both buses and private cars] David:Stuck @ gate. Be a few more minutes. Ginny: [quicktext]Love you David:…
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I ordered some Fannie Mae chocolates and sold some, too recently for a Holy Moly fundraiser. Filled in the forms, turned them in with payment a couple of weeks ago. Today at work I kept getting calls on my cell phone that went to voicemail, but I had the phone set at an annoying ring volume and the last time I pretty much opened and shut the phone to shut it up, because I can’t seem to turn down or turn off the ringer when the thing is closed. So I managed to set it to vibrate, and the phone…
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IS GEORGE BUSH THE WORST PRESIDENT — EVER? – Yahoo! News Columnist Richard Reeves reports on a recent poll of historians published by The History News Network at George Mason University: This is what those historians said — and it should be noted that some of the criticism about deficit spending and misuse of the military came from self-identified conservatives — about the Bush record: He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process; He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the…
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Friday was kind of a busy day. That night was the holiday party for David’s office, and we had hotel reservations for the night, so the point was to get down there as early as possible and relax a little before going to the party. The relaxing part didn’t happen, owing to the typically “lousy” Friday commute traffic (“lousy” is the current term of choice used by the local traffic reporters on WBEZ). Work was work, but I’d arranged to go in early so I could leave “early.” This was theoretical – I ended up leaving about 20 minutes later…
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I had volunteered to do a laundry run Thursday for one of the local PADS shelters; their regular person couldn’t make it and I got a call the night before. I didn’t have all the details on the pickup point, but I managed. Basically, I picked up bags of dirty laundry at lunch – easy, given where it was – and then dropped it off and picked up clean laundry sets at a nearby hospital after work. It was a long day, with lots of stuff going on at work, but the laundry thing was oddly relaxing. Since I can’t…
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Lot of things to get done next week. At least one major deadline got moved up on what I’m calling “the ‘Our World Is Changing’ project.” We recently went through a tech upgrade that, frankly, doesn’t benefit line agents much. In the interests of security, we’re now unable to download files or make changes to certain directories. Which is good. Unfortunately, our workhorse “programmable” key files now reside in the directory we can’t touch, meaning that whatever we had for programmables on the day tech services upgraded us is what we’re stuck with for keys, forever. Can’t update them permanently,…
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Yes, Santa can simultaneously ride his snowmobile AND motor around in his Yuletide power boat. He’s the ultimate multi-tasking guy, you know. Actually, this is pretty tame for the BHOI: I’ve blogged before about the many, many inflatable lawn blimps they’ve displayed over the years. One thing that I notice every time the inflatables come out in this area is how disturbing they look during the daytime. Most people around here don’t keep them inflated and illuminated in the daytime, so that leaves puddles of holiday-color fabric on the suburban lawns – they look oddly festive and corpse-like at the…