Blog Spotlight: Spence's Blog

While I've made a conscious effort to make my blog alot lighter than it used to be I'm still really interested in the sociology of the world and relationships that drove many of my postings before.

I wanted to take a moment to highlight a blogger named Spence who I found through Dlist. His postings get right at what it feels like to live in and deal with a break-up (and he's totally cute). I highly suggest a read if you get a chance. We as people connect over shared experience and if nothing else this man is taking what was a failed connection and redirecting the emotional energy from that experience to connect with many more people.

That is a realy beautiful thing. Enjoy.

Spence's Blog: Click Me!

*Binary-Love*

Let me start by saying that I am, by no means, a "tech guy". What I am is fairly facile with technology and I have an eye for function. I am a scientist at heart.

Today my scientist heart is utterly enamored with my new Ipod Shuffle. Basically I love it and I highly recommend it. For anyone considering a new MP3 player this is a competitive choice even for those of you with higher end devices. The obvious drawback of the shuffle is the lack of a screen. The advantages of the iPod Shuffle though are plentiful:

1. It's TINY. With regard to size it puts my iPod Nano to shame. It fits anywhere.
2. Super cute/sleek alloy body.
3. CHEAP at $79 dollars
4. Allows playback in shuffle mode OR in playlist order; meaning you can still choose how you listen to your music.
5. It holds over 200 songs. (Apple quotes a higher number but I recognize many of us listen to mixes that are far longer than the average song.)
6. The newest version of iTunes offers a sample feature, that allows the shuffle to sample whichever playlist, each time it's connected to your computer and ex-change the songs automatically. This is a HUGE improvement over the old software which used to just create a new playlist if you had more music than the iPod capacity.
7. The clip. As a guy who uses my iPod during the commute and during my workouts the clip is totally invaluable. No longer do I need to worry about some lame "arm band" that was totally useless on the train and very difficult to use on any day with any type of an arm workout. The clip attaches snugly to anywhere and I'm off with my music be it the train, gym or anywhere in between.
8. Finally, the ear buds have been vastly improved by Apple, making the listening experience over all better.(Thanks to JG for bringing this one to my attention)

Moral of the story. Drop your iPod Nano....buy the iPod Shuffle. You too will find love.

The Blue-ing of America

Here is an "Election 2006" map produced by USATODAY.com. It shows the 2006 election landscape with each county colored for the party which got the majority of the votes in that county.
To me this map is tremendously good news. Not only is it fairly evident from the map that masses of pro-democrats exist beyond just the coasts but whats more important to me is what might not be clear from just this map. Many republican voting counties, so called "Republican Locks" blued in this election... maybe indicating people are actually catching on. Maybe they want a better life and they want a government who is working for them not a govenment out for those in it.
Specifically, (for you geeks) huge portions of Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arizona, New Hampshire and Vermont went Democrat, a huge step. Even southern Texas, Western New York state and Mid-peninsula Florida saw groups of counties switching together.

What this tells me is that maybe some of it is getting through. Hopefully, people are seeing that the country is going the wrong way and I'm talking about the wrong way on issues starting but not ending with our Iraq Policy. Big elections can display waves of change, but only because they only happen every several years, what I'm hoping we're seeing is the slow change of our country for the better. To a place more concerned, more interested and more true to the values written by our founding fathers.

The election of hope...

Hope by the numbers...
-6 more Democrat Governors were elected among them at least 2 (Spitzer and Deval) who are openly supportive of gay marriage.

-A Democrat majority in the house (~234) and senate (49 + 2 indys) means a great deal for civil rights legislation and ethics abuse oversight. Beyond gay marriage, if we don't have a legislature willing to stand up for everyone's rights we're screwed.

-Arizona defeated a state wide ballot measure banning gay marriage. It was the only one of eight ballot measures banning same sex marriage that failed this election cycle. This is progress, last cycle they all passed.

-Finally, The Victory Fund announced that 67 openly gay candidates were elected to positions throughout the United States. This doesn't include other LGBT supporters or other civil rights advocates.

Hope is a start...now comes the real action. Get involved. Below are some places to start...
www.hrc.org
www.one.org
www.dnc.org
www.americanprogress.org

Wedding Bells

I spent this past weekend back in good ol'Beantown for the wedding of my good friend Ty and his new husband James. It was my first gay wedding and I have to say it was fantastic. These boys really put things together well. The pictures will be added very soon but I thought I would recap to give any other grooms-to-be some ideas and offer some personal commentary (would you expect any less?).

The wedding started on Saturday afternoon with a small reception where friends and family (all 30 of us) mingled with full glasses of wine in hand.
Point #1- Giving guests time to talk is good, but adding alcohol to that is MUCH better.
After 1 hour of that the grooms took to the front of the small room, where a good friend of theirs said a few words. After a short introduction they placed the rings on each other’s fingers and it was over.
Point #2- It was long enough to be special and emotional but wasted no time with ceremony for the sake of ceremony. When I asked one of the grooms why there was no vows his reply was, “We talked about that, but then realized neither of us could probably make it through them.”
Following the ceremony, all the guests packed into a rented Trolley (yes, I said Trolley) and we were whisked around the city for an hour tour en route to the grand Boston Harbor Hotel. The tour was fun, especially for the out-of-towners and gave us another chance to mingle.
Point #3- Thinking ahead counts for a lot. If we had to find taxis that would have been a nightmare. This was a cute way to keep the party rolling.
Finally, we arrived at the hotel where we went up to the fantastic restaurant for an amazing 4 course meal. A note here is that the table seating was assigned even with a small group and really and truly I think it made everything better for everyone.
Point #4- Always assign seating, people come to your event to have fun and mingle, the last thing they should have to worry about is where they will sit and who they will know. Take the guess work out and be a kind host.
The grooms threw a great bash and I am genuinely ecstatic for them. They looked very in love and I hope they have a wonderful life together.

Weddings are an interesting time to reflect on each of our lives. Unfortunately, when we reflect we tend to reflect in a single, rose-colored light. I know sitting there, watching these two friends of mine proclaim their love for each other, I was emotional and nostalgic for love in my own life. Sitting there, my most recent relationship came back very strongly. Another one of those, “What am I doing with my life?!” moments hit me and for a second I too was singing, “All you need is love…” in harmony with the rest of a small crowd at a tiny ceremony in Boston. The reality however is that love does not save the day, it doesn’t make people more compatible and it can not bend the world to it’s will. These are observations from my and others relationships and I have yet to see them fail. Love seems, more and more, like the icing on the relationship cake for stable people with strongly built relationships not the cake itself.

And now I got myself thinking about cake…