Leelanau Whippersnapper

Finally, I’ve had a reasonably relaxing weekend.  Of course tomorrow I head back in to hell for what will likely turn into a 6 day work week.  We begin a major re-set in my department tomorrow morning, there is a ton of work to be done and only 1 week to do it.  I’m going to have to be a cheerleader most of the week and that is indeed exhausting work.

Today I packed up the dog and headed out to the lake.  The sun has been out for the past few days, something exceedingly rare this time of year and I figured I would take advantage of it today by bringing my camera along.  I ended up going down to a beach I had not been to in quite some time.  It was further south than I usually go but still on Good Harbor Bay, just down the road further.  It was quite nice.  There were a few people out today but because of the Super Bowl and my complete lack of interest in sports, it was pretty quiet overall.  Gavin was able to run around off the leash for a while and I spent some time trying to capture a few good pictures.  I’ve uploaded a new gallery at leelanauphotography.com, just click the picture below to check it out.

The folks are off to Iowa for about 6 weeks tomorrow morning.  They’ve decided to spend some time away from here this winter since it’s easy to get really stir crazy this time of year.  We still have a good 3 months of shitty weather before spring starts to hit, I really hate this time of year up here.  Luckily, my job keeps me quite busy so it’s hard for me to care much.  Mom and Dad will be staying with Sarah, Brian and Christopher and I’ll be interested to hear how that all works out.  I love my folks to death but given the choice, I would not choose to have them live with me for any extended amount of time.  I’m pretty sure my folks would say the same about me. Our family dynamics are a bit much to tolerate day in and day out.  And, at my age, and their age, that’s the way it should be.  Christopher will be spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa for 6 weeks, and, that’s the way THAT should be too!  He’s a lucky kid, even if the only words he can say are “doggie” and “LOOK”.  We’ll see if Grandpa can teach him a few words during his stay.

I have made a new purchase since my last entry in this blog.  Last week, I broke down and bought a Wii so that I too could join the ranks of 30 something’s who are sick of being out of shape but who don’t want to join a gym.  I have always enjoyed video games even though I suck at them and I like the concept of being more involved in them rather than just sitting on a couch with a controller.  The Wii promises to at least get me off my ass for a little bit each day.  Eventually I’ll buy the Wii balance board and Wii Fit Plus game so that I can actually start getting in shape.  Sadly, they are sold out nearly all over the country and it’s going to be several weeks before they get back in stock.  Oh well, I’ll be busy enough at work.

Bonus time at work is fast approaching.  Profit Sharing checks are handed out Feb. 16th and my Managers bonus is due in mid March.  Crazy thing about my job is that I make more in the first 3 months of the year than I do the next 8 months of regular work just because of bonuses.  It’s nice to get big fat checks but it’s also dangerous because it’s easy to just go out and spend it.  If I had this job at any other time in my life, I’d be broke all the time but fortunately I’ve learned how to manage my money in much healthier ways so I’ll be able to save what is necessary but I’ll also be able to go out and get a few toys to play with.  This year I am buying a keyboard and I’ll write more about that when the time comes.  So for now, enjoy the new gallery.

Four Christians on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit challenging the recently enacted Hate Crimes Prevention Act, arguing that it seeks to criminalize deeply held religious beliefs that are in opposition to homosexuality.

Read Box Turtle Bulletin’s take on this story here.  Find out exactly the only thing these Christians must want.

This shit get’s old, luckily so are the people espousing this bile.

Today out of Washington DC:

“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said it was his personal belief that “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”

Now, I’m no army boy.  I have about as much interest in fighting a war as I do eating glass.  That said, with all my pacifist tendencies, I still will typically go out of my way to support those who are willing to risk their lives to defend the ideals of this country.  Granted, there are “just” wars and “unjust” wars but that is a political distinction not a practical one.  Regardless of the justification for wars in general, millions of individuals are called on by our government and by a deep sense of personal commitment to the ideals of this country to serve and protect that which we all cherish.  Freedom.  One of the great travesties of Bill Clinton’s time in office was the passage of “Don’t ask Don’t Tell”.  This, in effect, allowed openly gay men and women to serve in the armed forces as long as they were not “out” and did nothing to suggest that they were gay.  If it was discovered they were gay or if they were forced out of the closet by a third party, no matter the reason, they could be discharged…. dishonorably.  Since it’s implementation nearly 17 years ago, between 12,000 and 20,000 GLBT soldiers have been discharged at a cost to tax payers well into the 10’s of millions, many of those kicked out were critical players in the wars this country is fighting, NONE of whom did anything wrong…except be gay.

The implementation of this policy was a big deal.  I was a senior in high school and it was a campaign issue for Bill Clinton.  He would be the first president I actually got to vote for and this “compromise” was, in retrospect, forced on him by bigoted homophobes within the ranks of the military.  It has always been a bad policy, even other major military countries have proven over and over again that allowing gays to serve openly is not an issue.

Finally we are seeing some progress towards repealing this law with hearings that started today.  The big thing out of this is that Joint Chief’s are on board with a repeal.  The question is not IF the policy will be repealed, it is simply a question of HOW it will be repealed.  That’s huge because it means that a repeal is a fact, not a pipe dream.  That they are debating only HOW to repeal the law and not WHY is important.  Stay tuned over the next several months for updates.

The only state in the country to have this.  How is it that Sarah and Brian ended up in the middle of a corn field full of liberals?

Every year the HRC (Human Rights Campaign) publishes an index of the best and worst companies to work for in the United States based on their level of of equity towards the GLBT population.  Factors included in the ranking include whether or not the company has any anti-discrimination policies protecting GLBT employees, whether or not said companies offer health benefits to partners of GLBT employees, Corporate structure and political activism by said companies (what they support politically through monetary donations etc.) and the overall perception of GLBT employees of their employers.  There are many other items that go into the rank, you can find them all here.  I thought you might be interested in seeing how my company ranks as well as a visual of the worst employers in the country for GLBT people.

Keep in mind the rank is on a scale of 1 -100.  1 being the worst, 100 being the best.

In 2008 (the most recent year published) Menards Ranked 43 – From my perspective this is pretty accurate.  Menards is a pretty quiet company when it comes to politics.  Their primary objective is to make money, end of discussion.  That said, they do have anti-discrimination policies and anti-harassment policies that well exceed other companies I’ve worked for in my lifetime.  It is nearly impossible to have a successful retail business and not be somewhat tolerant and supportive of diversity.  Menards does not go out of it’s way but they do not actively contribute to a hostile climate for it’s GLBT employees.

Below is a list of the bottom of the barrel.  You’ll notice that Meijer (a company that I worked for several years ago and the company that Jirar worked for) received only a score of 20.  2 of the worst 10 companies in the country are Michigan based.  Michigan isn’t all bad, in the top 20 where companies such as the big automakers (GM, Ford), and Dow Chemical ranked with in impressive 100 score.  You can say what you like about HRC (they are a politically movtied and very active group) however their rankings do have significant importance, particularly to those companies that value the contributions of their GLBT employees.  Most of the Fortune 500 companies in this country far exceed private companies when it comes to fairness, all Fortune 500 companies exceed our Federal government when it comes to fairness and equality.

Today, we saw the introduction of the Prop 8 backers first witnesses (of only 2 that have not dropped out of the case).  Prior to that, our side rested after introducing into evidence thousands of documents and other related materials that without any doubt strengthens this case in fundamental ways.

“This evidence is not just a smoking gun. It was an arsenal of incendiary devices directed at the LGBT community and voters. This is how the Prop 8 side won — through fear and lies.”

I wish I had the where-with-all to take all the testimony I’ve read over the past 2 weeks and condense it down to a few paragraphs.  Alas, I’ll let others do that for me.  The next few days will be quite interesting ans Prop 8 proponents put their witnesses up on the stand to testify.  I wish this trial could have been televised.  It is so important that what happened in California be made known to the rest of the country and the rest of the world.  I still can’t say if things will go our way when this reaches the Supreme Court but I can say that this trial is doing mountains of good for highlighting the discrimination we have faced in this country for decades.  It’s very hard to ignore, this trial changes everything.

Road Runner Funny Clip – Funny videos are here

Found this on a blog today, seems my fair state of Michigan has yet another wingnut seeking to become the next Secretary of State.  It seems that RepubliKKKans in Michigan are hell bent on continuing to do whatever they can to run on platforms of hate and fear.

I will make it a priority to ensure transgender individuals will not be allowed to change the sex on their driver’s license in any circumstance.

The name is State Rep. Paul Scott, (R-Grand Blanc) and you all need to be sure that you don’t mark is little bubble in the election booth.  I don’t talk much about transgender issues primarily because it doesn’t really relate to me.  However they are the T in GLBT and part of broader Gay, Lesbian, Bi, and Trans community.  An attack on one is an attack on all and I have lost most of my patience for political leaders who continue to prey on minorities in this state and in this country.  For Mr. Scott, the above “priority” made it to the top of his list of things he wants to accomplish.  Let’s make sure he doesn’t get that opportunity.  Perhaps we can start addressing some of the issues in the image below rather than worrying about whether or not the person in the stall next to you might have once had a penis.  The statistics below are only 3 years old and I can bet they’ve not changed much.

If you’ve not seen the movie “UP”, you need to rent it and watch it.  I’m a huge fan of Pixar and Disney, they’ve teamed up with”YouTube whiz kid Fagottron” who has produced this great mash-up with scenes from the movie.  This is also the guy that did the Marry Poppins video which is sadly no longer available on YouTube. I’ve also posted another one based on scenes from Charley and The Chocolate Factory and one from Bambi.  Turn up the volume, have fun!

I have a problem. I like to think that most of the time I have the mindset of someone in their mid to late 20’s. You know what I’m talking about….I’m an invincible jackass, I can do anything sort of thing. Trouble is, when you are in your mid 30’s your body has unique ways of sharing with you the fact that you are most defiantly not younger than you really are. I had one of those days today.

Start with the fact that I got about 4 hours of sleep last night for no apparent reason, about 7:30 this morning, while putting up a new price sign at work, I managed to put all my weight back down on one foot and my body said FUCK YOU and fell out from under me! One big problem that I have at work is that I am on my feet all day long (10-12 hours at a time) and on hard concrete floors. Over the past week or so I’ve been having some mild discomfort in my lower legs which is something that is not terribly unusual for me considering what I do and that I tend to work about 50 hours a week. Well, today my leg just decided to give up on me and I pulled the hell out of my lower calf muscle. The timing could not have been worse.

Right about that time and after limping around the store trying to get my job done whilst being the laughing stock of my peers for being gimpy, it was announced that the head office was on the way to the store and we were going to get a surprise inventory audit. My day just got a LOT longer. Because I’m the manager, I have to be there, but because of my leg, I’m in a LOT of pain. Well, be a man dumbass….so I was (like a dumbass) and stuck it out for the next 4 hours waiting for my turn to be audited. Luckily I passed and the bonus I get from this audit will pay for the bullshit that happened next in my day.

As soon as my audit was over, I left work. I was given multiple recommendations for what to do about my leg (heat it, ice it, use Epsom salts…), I decided that a doctor might be better equipped to diagnose the problem and recommend appropriate treatment. So, it was off to Urgent Care. After waiting only 45 minutes (must have been a record for an Urgent Care facility), I was able to see a doctor. She was friendly, took my history, felt me up (my leg that is) and recommended that I go get an ultra-sound to make sure it was not a blood clot. Because this injury did not happen all at once in one fell swoop but sort of crept up and then exploded, she was worried that perhaps there was a bigger issue at play here. So off I went then over to the hospital to see the Radiologists. I’m not a big fan of radiologists, not because they are not nice people but because my experience with them in the past has resulted in having to drink nasty fluids. Not so much for an ultra-sound. I was in and out in 20 minutes and (because of my obvious limp and pain) I got to ride around the hospital in wheelchair so I didn’t have to walk. Well, no blood clots. My veins are just fine. I just have a really badly pulled muscle. So after that it was back to Urgent Care and the doctor went over some exercises that I could do. She offered me drugs, I declined and informed her that I could get by on Ibuprofen (also acceptable in her book). I’ve got this thing about taking pain drugs. Certainly there are times when they are needed but there are many undesirable things that can come out of taking them, one of them being dependence and I really don’t want to even go there.  I have a pretty high tolerance for pain and the less medication I have to take the better. So all this consumed about 4 hours of my afternoon.

I was going to write a bit about the Prop 8 trial but at this point I’m tired, still in a bit of pain, and really just looking forward to going to bed and sleeping. I don’t have to do anything tomorrow and I really don’t think I’m going to.

SO, those of you reading this who like to think you are younger than you actually are, DON’T BELIEVE WHAT YOUR HEAD TELLS YOU. Your body is quite a bit meaner than your head and will have no problems seeking revenge on your ass.