Well it’s time for another update and first let me apologize for my rather sparse attempts lately at blogging. My time has been royally consumed lately with all kinds of things not the least of which is FINALLY after 7 months of wrangling I am going to close on my new house on Monday! That means for all intents and purposes, I will have 16 days to get out of this condo. Things really move fast at this point. I was starting to get worried that I would not be able to get out of here before the snow came but it looks as though now that is going to happen. I’m quite excited about all this but frankly quite nervous as well. This is a HUGE step for me and one that I’ve not taken lightly in any way. I’ve spent hours of my time in addition to my crazy work schedule making this happen and all I can say is I’ll be dammed if I’m going to fuck it up now. I’ve made my commitment and I think it’s a good one for me at this point in my life and finally now I’ll have an asset and something to call my own rather than just a bill each month for someone else’s mortgage. Lots of responsibility now accompany this whole thing but I can handle it at this point I think.
So, what next? Now I have to figure out how to get out of this condo. My garage is packed at this point with boxes and all kinds of random shit. A good deal of it I’ll be able to move rather quickly using my car but it will be time now to recruit my folks and their trailer to see what we can get moved as soon as possible. My next decision is whether or not I want to hire some people to move my big stuff. I’ve called a couple of places and it would appear that I could hire this move for less than $500 which is a fair amount of money but considering my first mortgage payment won’t be due until January, I will have a little extra cash that I can spend getting this done. I’ve got about 10 big things that will be impossible for me to move myself. The rest is (or will be soon) packed up in boxes. I will need to make a few more phone calls to see what I can come up with. Once I get that figured out, then I have to get the carpet cleaned in the condo. I agreed to do this when I moved in as a replacement for the cleaning deposit which I did not pay. Going to cost me about $150 or less if I can find a coupon. Ideally I’d like to be moved out as much as possible by Thanksgiving. That will give me a few days to get this place cleaned up so as to ensure that I get my deposit back. That’s really pushing it though because I am being consumed at work right now preparing for BLACK FRIDAY. We’ll see what happens.
So, thats my big news right now. I wanted to post the video below because today marks the 35 anniversary of the sinking of the Edmond Fitzgerald. Enjoy the video. This is a classic song, one of my favorites.
This has been a crazy week but it’s been one that I can feel pretty good about. We’ve been through a major wind storm and I didn’t lose power at home, my broker informed me that the bank has finally done the appraisal on my house which means things are finally moving forward, and I’ve been featured yet again on Leelanau.com both as their daily photo as well as for their section “This Week in Leelanu”
This year, I’ve had 4 photos featured on the Leelanau.com web site and it’s rather exciting to me because that web site is the number one resource for all things Leelanau! According to the webmaster, they get over 100,000 pages hits per day on that site so even if a visitor never clicks on my picture, I am still getting tons of exposure. There are so many good photographers up in this area, I am happy just to be considered good enough to pass muster with the web master. If you don’t have this website in your favorites, you might want to add it. It’s worth checking out on a regular basis if you are interested in the things that go on up here in the northwoods.
So along with the exposure on Leelanau.com, I also have seen a huge spike in hits to my flickr account (which is where the photos are hosted that appear on leelanau.com). I average about 50 hits to my photos per day on Flickr which is pretty modest but when my photos are featured, they jump significantly. In just 2 days I have received just over 900 hits on my photos, I’ve been added to multiple photo pools on Flickr, and I’ve received a ton of good and supportive comments from people all over the place. I’ve even been asked by a few people if I’d be interested in selling some of my work. That has caught me a bit by surprise because I’ve not really considered doing it. I know the value of intellectual property such as this. I’ve always been hesitant to sell my work primarily because when you sell it, you gain notoriety, but you lose some value in the work itself. Once it shows up on a postcard, it becomes common and I’ve not decided yet if that’s the way I want my photographs to be seen. What I need is about $5000 so that I can make prints, frame them, and get them placed in a gallery. It’s much easier to sell a print for a worthwhile sum if you’ve taken the time to present it properly. It’s also easier to control what happens to it. I do copyright my images but those copyrights extend only as far as digital media allows it (which is not terribly far). Digital media is easily stolen. It’s a double edge sword. I want the exposure but I also don’t want to be ripped off. I’ll have to make some decisions on what direction I want to go with that sometime soon in the future.
Not much more to write about tonight. This weekend is Halloween and it’s time again for the annual Gurthet Halloween Pumpkin Festival. I’ll be spending Saturday night out in Leelanau with the family carving pumpkins and taking pictures. I’ll be sure to post a few here as well of the final results. Last year I believe we carved about 150 pumpkins, knowing Matt, I’m sure we will try to beat that number this year. We’ll see.
Here is one of the pictures that was featured on Leelanu.com this week.
What a spectacular day on Lake Michigan! Today I was going to stay at home all day and do chores. I’m so glad I decided against that and took a trip out to the lake by myself with my camera. All day today we have been under high wind warnings and even tornado watches all throughout the state. I was actually hoping that I might catch a waterspout on Lake Michigan but alas, the sun was out. On shore, winds were gusting over 70mph with sustained winds around 40mph. I’m still picking the sand out of my hair. I’ve uploaded a new gallery on my web site that you should check out, just click the picture below to go there.
I used this picture here to give you an idea of how amazing the waves were today. The surfer in the water is at least 6 feet tall (and crazy). At this beach, the water remains fairly shallow for about 15 feet past the shore (the surfer is in about 3′ of water where he’s standing) and then drops off to about 10 feet deep for another 200 yards at which point it drops of quite a bit. These waves are breaking at about 10 feet high. The surfer was having a hell of a time keeping it together. Another windy day is expected tomorrow so get out there and see the lake. This only happens a couple times a year up here.
After a brief hiatus, it’s time again for an update and a new fall gallery on my photography web site. Click over to check it out. Things are moving along rather briskly lately for me. Last time I wrote, I was looking at houses after having spent all summer sword fighting with the credit agencies over my credit report. Finally I am seeing my efforts pay off, of course it was not without it’s pitfalls. Since it took me the better part of 5 months to get my credit report straightened out, fall is nearly over and the weather is getting colder. Last week, I made an offer on a house and it was accepted on the first round. I got everything I asked for in the offer (which would have been unheard of in a sellers market). I’ve signed a purchase agreement and the inspection is scheduled for Monday. Like I said, things are moving along briskly now.
On Friday, I spent the better part of 2 hours with my mortgage broker signing my name to no fewer than 30 documents detailing the loan I am applying for. This purchase is contingent on the acceptance of my loan among other things. There are still a few hurdles I have to jump over before I am free and clear. The biggest news I have about the loan process is that because of what I asked for in the offer, the seller effectively paid points for me. I was able to lower my interest rate an entire point with the money I would have otherwise had left over from what the seller is paying on my closing costs. With the help of my broker, I ran multiple scenarios playing with that money. We looked at paying the principal loan amount down with it and we looked at various point options. In the end, I determined that since I am likely to be there longer than 5 years, the lower interest rate was the way to go. My good faith estimate now shows my rate at 4.25 and the net result is a savings of about $9600 over the life of the loan in interest savings. Not huge, but not bad either. As it turns out, my mortgage payment will end up being about $1 less than what I am currently paying in rent. Obviously my utilities will be a bit higher but shit, they aren’t going to be through the roof by any means. I am fortunate that I am in this position today. The housing market is basically at a bottom meaning there is a good chance I’ll make money on my purchase when I go to sell the house down the road. So, on that front, I’m happy.
While all this was going on, Jirar managed to fly up here for a visit, thus, you will find now a new gallery on my web site of our Fall Color Tour through Leelanau county. We hit all the major spots. Glen Arbor, Pyramid Point, Peterson Park and all the beaches in between. Put 125 miles on the car too and blew a half tank of gas doing it. As a side note, not sure what to think about Jirar right now. There is no denying that we still click with each other. I don’t get as emotional now when I see him but I still wonder if someday we might get back together. The demeanor of our relationship has not changed much, even since we split up, as though we might simply be taking a break. Neither of us is foolish enough (or perhaps wise enough) to wait for the other to suggest something but neither of us will deny our feelings for the other. Right now, I can’t let it bother me or cloud my head. I’ve got lots going on and I’m not waiting for anyone but myself at this point.
Sunday I’m heading out to the lake to take out the dock for the winter, a job I hate but one I’m willing to put up with since it benefits me and saves my folks a few bucks. I’m glad they are finally paying someone to put it in when spring rolls around. I appreciate the example my folks set for me by being frugal but really, there are some things simply not worth saving a buck over. Nobody in this family has a good back, I’d rather like to keep mine for a few more years. On Monday the inspections are to occur on the house. This is a necessary step in the process and one I’m actually looking forward to. This purchase is also contingent on nothing major being wrong with the house so we’ll see what happens with that.
I’ll be trying to write more as we get closer to my closing date which right now is officially set for December 1 although we are pushing to get it done sooner so I can move in by Thanksgiving. I really hope that happens, I’m not all that interested in moving in the snow. So, stay tuned for further developments.
For your viewing pleasure, pictures from my trip to Colorado. 75 pictures along with cheesy music just because it was free. Someday, I’ll create a video slide show with more appropriate music. This will do for now. You can watch this in full screen and you can get to my photography web site by clicking on the link in the slide show. Enjoy!
Not making a long post tonight but I am going to provide you with a snip from the World Net Daily, the ultra Christian Right Wing Noise Machine regarding recent suicides I talked about in my previous post. When you read this, you should consider the fact that while this is not a main stream news source, it is a source that is routinely cited when these dip-shits try to justify stripping gays of their civil rights. They are some of the most vile writers I’ve ever read and I can’t even count the ways this “news source” has interfered with the civil discourse this country so badly needs. It is to the right of Fox News but it’s given the same credibility as Fox News and that’s not a good thing. These people want me and every other gay person dead and they aren’t afraid to say it, publish it, or provide it as propaganda to thousands of churches around this country. I’ve taken the quote from the blog Good as You which is on of the regular blogs that I read.
It was obvious from the start that the orientationally-challenged activists would attempt to blame [Tyler] Clementi’s death on his roommate. But the surreptitious filming of sexual activity, while an obvious breach of etiquette as well as the law in some states, is neither uncommon nor tantamount to attempting to destroy someone’s life. Nor should the online streaming be considered anything but a joke; American Pie is a comedy, not a horror flick, after all. The problem is not that American university campuses are intolerant of the orientationally challenged, as the subtext of the media coverage suggests, but rather that they are much too tolerant.
It is obvious that Clementi didn’t kill himself simply because his actions were made public; as a musician, no doubt he had been filmed before and some of those films may have even been put online. He killed himself because he could not live with the shame of knowing that everyone would be aware of his submission to what he apparently believed to be evil desires. While giving in to our desire for evil is something that we all do from time to time, it is also true that some desires happen to be more shameful or humiliating than others. For example, a man’s desire for his neighbor’s wife is sinful, but few consider it to be as appalling as his desire for his neighbor’s child.
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And that is why his suicide poses a problem for the “morality is a human construct” crowd. Despite literal decades of preaching about the morality of homosexuality, despite the pansexual propaganda of the public and private schools, the knowledge that what he was doing was shameful and wrong still managed to penetrate Mr. Clementi’s mind. A normal man being forced to confront his immorality in such a public way might have reacted with anger, irritation, embarrassment, or amusement, but only one who is both psychologically disturbed and appalled by his own actions will destroy himself over it.
FULL PIECE: Gay rights killed Clementi [Vox Popoli]
There is nothing I hate more than writing about the bullshit that is inflicted upon the gay community but I personally think it’s important to write about it. 30 years from now, things will be different. I’m no fool even if I am gay. When I log in to my super-fast Internet in 30 years and want to reminisce, I can look back on the shit going on right now and be thankful that the people I care about are on the right side of the issues.
Sometimes it’s hard to escape reality. I get up every day, go to work, come home, try to wind down, and then go to sleep, then I wake up and do it all over again. It’s a simple existence and one that I don’t really mind all that much. Despite the simplicity of my life, I do try to stay on top of current events and I do so mostly through blogs, YouTube, and various pod-casts or video-casts of the National News on from the various news outlets around the country. I’ve said before here that I tend to get a good deal of my news from gay-centric sources primarily because it’s news that matters to me. There are some things going on though lately that have piqued my attention and they have to do with being a gay kid.
Back in the day, I could have told you right away that I was different. I had no concept of my sexuality in any significant way before age 13 or 14 but I knew I was not like the other boys my age. I could not really comfortably label myself as gay before I was 15 or 16 and by age 17 I had simply accepted it for myself even though I didn’t really come out until a year or so after that. The month of September has been a deadly month for gay kids this year. In just 30 days, there have been 3 suicides and boy with a broken arm that is continuing to be harassed.
Seth Walsh, the Bakersfield, CA 13-year-old who hanged himself from a tree in his back yard after years of being bullied, died Tuesday afternoon after nine days on life support. Police investigators interviewed some of the young people who taunted Seth the day he hanged himself. “Several of the kids that we talked to broke down into tears,” Police Chief Jeff Kermode said. “They had never expected an outcome such as this.”
Asher Brown, 13, an eighth-grader killed himself last week. He shot himself in the head after enduring what his mother and stepfather say was constant harassment from four other students at Hamilton Middle School in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in Houston Texas. Brown, his family said, was “bullied to death” – picked on for his small size, his religion and because he did not wear designer clothes and shoes. Kids also accused him of being gay, some of them performing mock gay acts on him in his physical education class, his mother and stepfather said.
Billy (William) Lucas, 15, a student at Greensburg Community High School in Greensburg, IN, was found dead in a barn at his grandmother’s home Thursday evening – he had hanged himself. Friends say that he had been tormented for years. “He was threatened to get beat up every day,” friend and classmate Nick Hughes said. “Sometimes in classes, kids would act like they were going to punch him and stuff and push him. Some people at school called him names,” Hughes said, saying most of those names questioned Lucas’ sexual orientation.
An Ohio mom is disappointed that her son’s school didn’t do more to stop at least two boys who allegedly picked on her 11-year-old cheerleader son until the bullies beat him so bad they broke his arm. She says the beating didn’t break his spirit however. Tyler Wilson has vowed to continue cheering with hopes it helps him get into college some day. ”I’m going to keep going. I’m going to make a lifestyle out of it,” Tyler told ABC News affiliate WTVG.
All 4 of these stories have been getting airtime on the national network news channels. This sort of thing is nothing new for gay youth. Every day gay kids are beaten up, harassed, called names and generally tormented because they have identified as gay or others PERCEIVE them to be so. It’s easy now as an adult to simply ignore all of this and that’s why I’m writing this post. It shouldn’t be ignored. I get really angry when I hear that another kid killed himself because he was fed up with being bullied over his sexual orientation. That kid might have been me.
The memories I have left of grade school and middle school (with certain exceptions for my time at ABS) are not good ones for me. We are again talking about a different time and a different era but I was routinely picked on at school by certain kids. My involvement in music was a constant source of ridicule and teasing even into high school. I was a sissy for being able to sing or play the piano, or I was just a dumbass for not getting into playing football on the playground. I was fortunate that despite the daily combative atmosphere I had teachers and more importantly parents that I knew supported me and to whom I knew I could turn if things ever got to a point where I could not deal with it on my own. It also helped that the kids I hung out with at home were different kids than those I went to school with. The neighborhood was much different for me than my school life. I was a pretty independent kid. I didn’t really care all that much what my peers thought of me and even today, I’m not really all that concerned about what others think of me. I’m not on this planet to please them or to make them happy. I’m here for ME and to live MY life.
I don’t really know the demographics of the people who read my blog but I know there are more people reading this than just my parents. Some of you might be gay kids, some of you might be gay adults, some of you might be straight conservative Christians. I don’t know. What I do want to say though is that I would be lying if I did not admit that during my youth I contemplated the idea of suicide. Growing up is not an easy thing to do and I’d be hiding the truth if I could not admit that I disliked 2/3 of my childhood experiences outside of my house. It’s that other 1/3 though that has made me into the adult I am today. Those experiences I had as a kid, especially the experiences that made me feel good about myself and about my life, shaped me into who I am today: someone that tries very hard whenever I’m given the chance to give a shit about the lives of other people. My life got better and better as I grew up and as I got out of school and started living my own life. And even today, each day is a new challenge and a new adventure and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s very hard for adult gay males to be involved with kids in any significant way. It’s easier now than it used to be but straight society STILL sees us (especially men) as sex obsessed predators. That’s a HUGE reason for why I got out of education and why I gave up my work with the boychoir. It doesn’t matter how good a person I present myself to be, the assumption always is that it’s just not a good idea for me (gay men) to be around kids. Even if I had the support of 99% of the parents of the kids I worked with, the 1% who couldn’t deal with it could potentially destroy a career over no other reason than their own bigotry and ignorance. I wanted nothing more to do with that atmosphere. Why was I continuing to try and live my own life by their standards for so long?
One of the things that I was missing in my childhood and the childhood of these kids who have killed themselves this past month was a healthy gay adult role model that was visible. There was nobody I could look at and say “he turned out OK, maybe I can too” during those times when I was getting picked on for whatever reason. I had the support of my parents and all these kids may well have had the support of their parents, but all of us left behind stories of being different and singled out. The difference was that people intervened in my life at different times as I grew up and kept me going in the right direction, those boys were never given the chance to develop an idea that their lives might just get better if they just stuck it out a little longer. Nobody helped those kids or their parents deal with what they were going through, nobody recognized the problem because homophobia and ignorance are still the rule, not the exception. This has to change in our society. Gay kids are not going to just go away and neither are gay adults. This fear and ignorance has to be dealt with if we are ever to see a slow down in suicide rates. If you didn’t already know, gay and questioning kids are 4 times more likely than their straight peers to commit suicide and 9 out of 10 gay kids report regular harassment in their schools for being gay or from others perceiving them to be gay. I’ve posted these statistics before. They are very reviling and very disturbing.
So I’m going to end this post with a video of a new project that has been started online. Much like the internet, this sort of thing never existed when I was growing up and after spending some time watching these videos of people my age re-telling their stories of growing up gay, I wish something like this had been around for me. It might have made things easier for me to deal with. This project won’t bring back the 3 boys that took their own lives this past month but it’s a step in the right direction and maybe a small bit of hope for all those gay kids who have no support system and nobody to talk to.
If you are a kid or young adult reading this blog, there is a link on the sidebar to the Trevor Project. Visit that web site and know that there is someone available for you 24/7 every day of the year. Watch the intro vid for the “It Get’s Better Project” below and then click the video to go watch more on YouTube. I won’t ever do a video cast of myself, this blog post will serve as my entry.
