Singapore/KL Bangkok Stuttgart Washington DC Toronto Colorado Springs San Francisco

Left Hawaii for San Francisco today a few hours late, but it was all good. The airline called me last night with the message my flight would be delayed this morning by 4 hours. So instead of leaving at 7:30am I left at 11:30, which means I got to sleep in, eat a nice breakfast, and not be rushed this morning. And since I'm not connecting anywhere, it doesn't really impact me if I get into San Francisco around 8pm instead of at 4. AND my upgrade to first class came through so the flight was a nice one. And Hilton, bless their hearts, upgraded my room here in SF, so I now have a suite. And that's sweet.

I'm going dancing tonight, first time in a few weeks, and then tomorrow I will run around Chinatown and the castro before Tracy comes up and we go play tomorrow night. Sunday evening I'll finally get home, and as much as I like travel and like SF and like seeing friends, I'll be ready to get home. And Adrian has gotten sick and needs someone to make him chicken soup.

I just need to find a chicken.

Labels: Friends, Travel

Meetings are going OK, no more frustrating than expected. And screw it all, I'm in Hawaii, so automatically, life is good.

Dinner tonight with Fritz and Kim, much fun was had, and there was a cute waiter who was definitely gay but didn't seem to want to admit it.

I'm seriously thinking we should have moved here instead of DC. So nice....

Got out of meetings too late to call home tonight, was already after midnight in DC and it's not nice to wake people. Unlike last night, where I tried to call one of my colleagues here with me (also from DC so phone number was a DC area code). But I misread his number and called the wrong number, which would have been OK except it was 1:30am back in DC when I woke up a complete stranger. Oops.

Labels: Travel, Work

Arrived last night in Honolulu. I'm here until Friday morning for work. Had a meeting this afternoon, then the all-day meetings start Tuesday.

My friends Fritz and Kim met me at the airport with leis, which was very cool. I got complimented on one of them, then got big kudos for the other, which was a collection of little liquor bottles on a string. We'll see how many of those make it home with me.

Got to bed around 10:30 last night after a 23-hour day (we are 6 hours behind DC here). I took a couple little sleepy pills because the time difference always throws me off and I wake up around 3am unable to get back to sleep. I did wake up after about an hour, then drifted off again, and woke up again around 4am but no big deal. Then at 6am my supervisor calls and says "we're going to breakfast at 7 and we'll discuss our plan for the day." My plan was to sleep in until 8, then do some work here and go to the one meeting we had today at 2pm. I didn't really see a need to discuss it any further than that and I told him I wouldn't be joining people for breakfast because I was going to be busy going back to bed. He called again at 8:30 as I was jumping into the shower and said, "hey, we're back and we're downstairs, come down so we can discuss our plans for the day." WTF? This strikes me as pretty simple, why does there need to be a bunch of discusison about it? I wandered down and it was apparent I was unhappy, and if they don;t like that, then screw 'em. I'm tired of the idea that being a "team player" means abandoning common sense. This is why I prefer going on business trips by myself rather than with control freaks 20 years older than me who are no fun to be with but who insist on doing stuff together. This is also one reason I'm not unhappy about going to Afghanistan -- it gets me out of the office I share with these people.

I'm going down in a couple hours to meet the group for dinner. So we can discuss our plans for tomorrow. Goddess give me the strength not to strangle one of them as an example to the others.

Labels: Travel, Work

I'll be in Afghanistan in June and July, so just two months, which is a lot better than my 4 months in Baghdad a couple years ago. I'll probably leave DC near the end of May and get back in early August because it takes a few days to get into and out of the country.

Basically, I will be mentoring the social science faculty at a school there...they have been in operation for a few years but need some help. The college in Colorado where I used to teach has teamed up with another US college to support this new Afghan school. My old college needed some help so I was asked if I'd be wiling to go during the summer. The subjects I'll be helping with are Economics, International Relations, and Government, though in this case it's Afghan Government, which means I should learn a little something about that.

This sounds like an opportunity to really do some good, and accomplish something that I can feel proud of. Education is the key to self governance, so maybe I can help this country just a little bit. I'm very excited, and sure, a little nervous, though at least I'll be better prepared for this than i was for Iraq. And it'll be good to get into a classroom again, though the language barrier will be a little trickier here than it was in Colorado, I think.

Labels: Life, Teaching, Travel

I've often thought of the episodes in my life as a series of movies. Not sequels, but simply a lot of stories centered on a common character with a set of consistent themes. Sort of like James Bond. Or Star Trek. But not Planet of the Apes.

Anyway, if that metaphor seems valid to you, then imagine the guy who does the movie preview voiceovers as he says...

"Coming this summer...if you liked Iraq...you're gonna LOVE Afghanistan!"

So anyway, that's the big news. My summer travel plans appear to be set. Anyone want to join me in Kabul?

Labels: Life, Travel

I told my folks my latest news tonight, now I need to tell people around here, and then I can post it.

Carol sent me a note today that she already knows, because she has an inside source. She's as sneaky as she is cute.

And no, sorry Tracy, the news is not that I am moving to Santa Cruz.

Labels: Life

My respect for the DC Police Department is at an all-time low. And considering my respect for them was never all that high, that's saying something.

Adrian and I were in an accident in the District today. Everyone's fine, on the grand scale of accidents it was relatively minor, we got rear-ended by a cab while we were stopped and Adrian's car suffered some damage to and around one taillight, whereas the cab's front was pretty messed up. What pissed me off, though, was that Adrian got cited even though we were the ones rear-ended. Why? Because the cab driver flat out lied to the police officer, telling her we were pulling into his lane (he was actually changing into our lane and wasn't paying attention) and the cop decided to believe him rather than us, despite the physical evidence of the debris on the road that showed who was telling the truth (and fortunately Adrian remembered we have cameras in our cell phones now and we took photos of everything).

This sucks because the insurance company will look at the citation and say it was Adrian's fault. We have already written up our statements to appeal the ticket, which we think will be successful since we have photos. But I am frustrated by the fact that this cop has the power to make that decision and no apparent qualifications for making it (she didn't examine the damage to the cars or the debris in the road, suggesting she's not exactly their #1 accident investigator). I realize we need to focus on what we can control -- the appeal of the ticket, for instance, rather than the fact of her employment -- and we're doing that, but it still frustrates the piss out of me.

On the plus side, Adrian's insurance company seems to be pretty no-hassle when getting this fixed, so that should help.

Labels: Life

I had a minor outpatient procedure on Wednesday (no big deal) and I'm feeling it today. On the downside, I'm in a little bit of pain (though it's dissipating) and I'm walking like an old man through the apartment (no one needs to mention that I actually AM an old man). On the upside, it gives me a good excuse to take off from work Friday and stay home to watch Virginia play in the NCAA tournament. Always look for that silver lining.

Oh, and Dancin' Mike called last night, which was perfect timing as I was stuck in bed and getting very bored. We talked for almost an hour and a half and I'm happy to report that he's doing VERY well in Barcelona. Design school is going well and he seems to be getting on well with the locals too. So yay him!

I also have some news of my own but I need to tell a few people around here before I share it with the world. So now that I've (hopefully) whetted your appetite, be sure to come back!

Labels: Life

We went to hear Josh Groban in concert tonight. The last time we saw him was in Colorado for Adrian's birthday in 2005. This time around, I'd gotten him the tickets for Christmas. We weren't quite sure at Christmas who he'd be going with, what with all the things going on around here, but I'm glad it was me. I'm also glad Ticketmaster sent me a reminder last week or it could have slipped our minds. And that would be bad.

Josh puts on a good show without all the flash and special effects that Madonna and Cher and such tend to bring on. Just a simple guy backed up by a band. And a small 15-piece orchestra. I gotta get me one of those.

How come there are no dance remixes of Josh Groban song? Somebody call Junior vasquez and ask him to get on it.

Labels: Music

I've been blogging for over 6 years so I'm sure I've discussed this before, but I'm too tired to go looking for it (the switch to Daylight Savings Time always messes me up for a couple days) so I'll just write about it now.

Straight people are fantastic. If it weren't for straight people we wouldn't have any gay people (think about that for a second). But, straight bars? I don't like 'em.

Friday night we went to a birthday party where some folks had rented out a bar in the early evening for their friend. It was a nice place, but when the end of the rental time came and the regular crowd started coming in we realized it was a straight bar. Bear in mind this is on P Street in the Dupont Circle area of DC, about the gayest place you can find here.

Afterwards we were meeting up with Kenneth, an old friend from "The Before Time" (actually, the guy who introduced me to Adrian) and he suggested we meet at this beer place around the corner that was full of very straight, very just-out-of-university-or-maybe-in-their-last-year looking people. The reason for this was obvious when Kenneth arrived and the friend with him was straight. The wait for a table promised to be long so we convinced them to go across the street to a gay bar, even though Kenneth's friend was a little nervous about it.

I guess I didn't think about it until Kenneth asked him, "do you mind going to a gay bar?," and I thought, "no one asked if we mind going to a straight bar."

I mentioned the whole straight bar theme of the evening later to Kenneth and he said, "that's an issue for you, huh?" and he got me to thinking. Yeah, I guess it is. Part of it is the idea that it's "natural" for straights to be uncomfortable in a gay bar but not the other way around. And part of it is that far too often I've found straight people in bars get a little too drunkenly loud, in an exaggerated happiness kind of way, almost like they're putting on a show, which frankly they probably are, in the hopes they can get laid. Us gay folk don't always put on the same loud show...we just grab someone's ass. Gay clubs are full of posturing and attitude and all that sort of stuff, but it tends to be kept a bit quiet, done in more subtle ways. Straight clubs, especially with a younger crowd, tend to have lots of obnoxious loud people. And I'm not into that.

Niche clubs would be different, I think...I still want to go to a goth club, and that will be mostly straight, and going to hear live music is different, too. It's just the "sit around and drink" bars, I think.

Maybe part of the issue for me is that, given my job, I pretty much have to be "straight" all day, so I have no desire to be pressured into a closet when I'm out for fun.

Of course, any place can be a gay place if we go in big enough numbers, but the reality is we're outnumbered something like 9-to-1. So we can try to take over, or at least have an obvious presence. But we can also get the snot beaten out of us if some people don't like it. And yeah, that does still happen here.

By the way, apropos of nothing, I've decided I really REALLY like gummy bears.

Labels: Bars

The cute boy on the bus is, in fact, gay. Or at least, in his words, kind of confused. He's a nice guy and we've been getting to know each other on the bus/Metro over the last month. Confirmation came last night and within a couple hours he was having dinner over here with us. Because we like gay people. Especially in our complex. And particularly if they are under 65 and not hitting on Adrian.

Labels: Flirting, Friends

Is it just me, or is Lindsay Wagner looking really worn out these days?