We are finally starting to approach spring up here in the northwoods.  The pot heads are coming out of the forest and visiting the store once again stinking up the place, and the roads are full of pot holes again too.  Life in Michigan: where tourists can pretty much count on losing an axle on the roads as soon as they cross the state line.  Speaking of traveling, I did finally take a vacation (after 6 months of constant work) and took a trip down to the corn fields of Iowa to meet my new niece Lucy.  It was nice to see that Sarah and Brian run a tight ship, emulating the fine examples of our parents.  Christopher has grown and is finally learning to speak using complete sentences, something that will always make him my favorite nephew (make sure you remind him of that) and Lucy was sporting a fine head of hair, clearly preparing to wear home made barrettes made of bright pink sequins for the annual family pictures.  It was nice to see them all and even help them to acquire new channels on their TV.

On my way home from Iowa I managed to spend $10 on tolls going through Chicagoland only to end up at Ikea to spend a paltry $35.  I had never been to an Ikea store before and I had planned on making some bigger purchases to help furnish my new house.  Once there, I decided that other things really needed to be accomplished prior to setting up a Swedish sweat lodge in my basement.  Really, I simply can’t have a country bumpkin, collection of random things going on.  I need more consistency than that so some planning is going to be in order.

I am enjoying my new 47″ TV that I purchased with my profit sharing bonus at work.  Of course everyone I know is simply amused that I refuse to get cable TV to go along with it, they all think that I’ve wasted my money because I can’t watch 600lb men behave like fools at national sporting events in 3D.  Little do they know that there is more to entertainment than learning how many feet there are in a yard.  Like, perhaps watching the latest episode of Glee.  Gavin the wonder dog has been having a good time exploring his new house and it has not taken him long to get quite comfortable wandering around outside, soon I’ll be able to fence him in and I won’t have to stand out there and watch him every time he needs to go out.

I won’t even go into all the drama lately at work.  Let’s just say I’m glad I’ve got my shit figured out since at least that means I’ll be able to keep my job.

So that’s about all I have to say for tonight.  We’ve sprung the clocks ahead by an hour this weekend and so my body still thinks it’s much earlier than it really is.  I must be off to bed if there is any hope of me waking up in the morning.

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.

UUUMMM!!! I am sure God defined a relationship to One MAN and One Woman. If anything else was acceptable…. You wouldn’t be putting it to a vote. It’s in the Bible… that a man shall not lie with another man or animal.Only a woman is acceptable. I will not put the exact location of this.I Hope you will find the time and Grace to read the bible and find that any other relationship, other than a man and a woman is not acceptable.  Our God is forgiving and your sin will be noted but forgiven, should you choose to make your wrong right. There is no such thing as “Gay Rights”. It is only Apathy to a sickening delusion.

Praise God…Praise God? I don’t think so, and neither did Sodom and Gomorrah. Why do you think it’s called Sodomy. Fire and Brimstone ring a bell? Maybe the people of America and the governments will accept it, but your “victory” is only for a short while….Have fun while you can and more power to you, but don’t be praising my God for it, you’re welcome to give the glory to Satan!

If you are a white male or female that goes to work and does your job or you own a small business and work your but off all year and you happen to acknowledge your Creator and acknowledge the Word He gave us to understand our reason for being here on earth you have very few rights. If you decide to ignor that God created humans and animals male and female for a given purpose to praise Him and live a ife of thankfulness you have all the perverted laws of this sinful counrty on your side.  Pray for this country and it’s people that we don’t destroy ourselves with our wackiness. Genesis 1: Male and female He created them to populate the earth

It is amazing to me the ignorance that plagues West Michigan in SO many ways.  I’ll be the first to admit that where I am living now is full of backwoods, gun touting, red-neck, bible beaters but in the 5 years that I’ve lived in the Traverse City area, working in a very public place, meeting hundreds and hundreds of people every week doing my job, I have never experienced the same sort of belligerent holier-than-thou attitudes that I experienced routinely while living in Grand Rapids.  The homophobia I experience up here is exalted with deep blushing and whispers…by those knowing that what they are saying in public is unacceptable in polite conversation.  Not so in West Michigan.  These folks, while they have every right to express their opinions, have no problem blasting out lies and bible verses to support their blank and completely uninformed statements.  Sometimes I wish that their God would just smite them for being so dam ignorant!

It’s very likely that this ordinance will end up on the November ballot so once again, they can put MY civil rights up to a popular vote.  Folks, one of these days, someone or some group is going to put YOUR civil rights up to a popular vote so you can feel what it’s like to have to fight for things you should never have to fight for.

I know I preach to the choir quite often on this blog but for you heterosexuals out there who are reading this (which likely is my primary audience), I feel that I have at least a small obligation to provide you with accurate information to combat all the mis-information you have received over your lifetime about homosexuals.  This blog is my activism outlet you see.  I don’t take to the streets with signs and I don’t get into heated public arguments with people about this or really about anything.  It’s just not my style.  I get my opinions out in writing for anyone to see and I welcome challenges to those opinions…provided you eventually agree with my point of view.  Well, you don’t have to agree, but you do at least have to be nice to me and respect that we can agree to disagree.  So, those of you in Michigan, it’s important for you to know the arguments out there that want to keep me pinned down as a second class citizen.  Michigan you see has already declared through it’s Constitution that my existence doesn’t count, that I am not worthy of marriage, that it’s OK to fire me from my my job simply for being gay, that it’s OK by the laws of Michigan to prevent my partner from making medical decisions for me should I ever be incapacitated and not able to do so for myself.  You’re right, most of those don’t apply to me directly, right now, at this particular minute in my life but they have in the past and they will in the future.  So my voice is here on this blog for anyone to read because I can.  Because I can change minds and hearts through words just as my opponents can harm me through words of their own.  So I’ll get off my soap box now and take off my tin-foil hat and let you watch the video below.  Take note of the issues presented as they are the issues that are being used to keep me down.  You’ll see, none of them are legitimate but those making those arguments sure seem to think so.

Mich. court condones misleading ballot tactics

You know, before I was in a serious relationship I don’t think I would have really cared that Gay marriage was “banned” in Michigan through the passage of proposal 2 in 2004.  Now that I’ve been in a serious relationship and now that the relationship has ended it makes me wonder why I am continuing to live in this state at all.  I know why I continue on here but oh my fucking god folks, how fucking ignorant can you all possiably be?  Did your crack pipe explode in your face?  Did Bubba forget to wash his overalls again?

Already, Lambda Legal, which recently created a “Safety Scale” of states as guidance for convention planners as well as gay couples planning to travel or relocate, put Michigan, once a leader on gay rights, in the worst class.

For those of us who care about Michigan, the damage this court ruling does to the state’s reputation is, to put it mildly, discomforting.

Michigan Sucks.  If I had been allowed to get married to Jirar, I would already have the use of the legal system to help us both dissolve our relationship.  What if the 2 of us had adopted children?  We were together 10 years, it would not have been unusual for a heterosexual couple together that long to have had kids, why not a gay couple?  The fact is, Jirar and I had (and continue to have) no legal rights in Michigan.  He could walk out on his commitments tomorrow and I would have absolutely NO recourse.  He could have the power, gas, phone, and cable shut off here tomorrow and I could do nothing about it since they are all in his name.

Two justices dissented from that May 7 ruling, saying the five-justice majority read too much into the amendment. The dissenters, citing the campaign’s bait-and-switch tactics, issued a warning that should be heard nationwide: “(T)he majority condones and even encourages the use of misleading tactics in ballot campaigns… (I)n the future, organizations may be encouraged to use lies and deception to win over voters or the court. This should be a discomforting thought for us all.”

Not only is this one of the worst states in the county economically, it has also become so corrupt even our justices don’t know what justice is.

I managed to get all the way out of Leelanau and over by Traverse City West High School before out of nowhere (well not really) I could not see anytying in front of me on the road.  I was going quite slow to begin with so I did as I would normally do when you can’t see, slow down more and keep the wheels on the car straight.  As I slowed down, I must have hit some ice in the road becuase within 5 seconds the front of my car was heading over the side of the road and into a ditch.  There was no way I could stop the situation at this point so I kept my hands on the wheel, put my foot on the break and just let the snow stop me.  For the first time since I’ve lived up here, I ran myself off the road, or Mother Nature did anyhow.

No airbag explosion, no damage to the car, just a big fluffy pile of snow with my car burried under it.  I had to get my balance since I was sitting at an angle.  I flipped on the light in the car and started looking around for a phone number for a tow service.  This would be interesting I thought at 7am on a Sunday morning out in the country.  Called Mom and Dad, thankfully not to inform them that I was calling from beyond the grave, and they got me a tow truck phone number.

I sat there in the ditch with my car running for about 45 minutes before the tow truck came to haul me out.  In that time I’d say about 10 people stopped to ask if I needed any help.  I’m very grateful that people actually stopped but I could not help but notice something about those who did.  80% of them were women and of the 2 men who stopped, 1 was a county snow plow driver who was not allowed to use his plow to tow anything and the other apparently lived near where I was.  Again, I am thankful for those who stopped, if I had needed help, I know I would have received it.  My question though is for all the people who just kept on going.  Why did you slow down, look, and then speed away?  Next time, do people like me in this type of situation a favor.  Don’t stop, don’t look, don’t gawk.  If you have no intention of helping or asking if anyone needs help, get the hell out of here.

Anyhow, by the time the plow arrived it was light outside so I was able to take a look around.  I’m actually lucky to be alive and writing this.  About 10 feet behind where I went off the road the ditch kept right on going….down about 50 feet.  Had I been going any faster and that white out happened any sooner, I would have ended up parked in the top branches of several old cherry trees.  They might have broken the fall but they would have never been able to support the weight of my car and thus I would have ended up at the bottom of the ravine, likely in pretty bad shape and out of sight of the road.  Call it what you want but I call it luck.

So tomorrow, I get to wake up again at 5am and do it all over again.  I just love working for a company that doesn’t care what happens to you on your way to work, only that you get there on time.  Like I said in my previous post, I’m about done risking my life just to get to work and sit on my ass because EVERYONE in their right mind is at home and not out driving in the first place.   This is the reason I need to be closer to town.  This is the reason I will not be saying at this house past August of this year.

This new year is starting out on an interesting note but the only thing I give a shit about right now is how difficult the factor of time and distance is for Jirar and me right now.  I’ve not been able to see him since before Thanksgiving and now it looks like it will be into February before we have another opportunity to see each other.  After 10 years together, the only thing I can say is this Sucks with a capitol S.  Neither of us thought it would be as difficult as it’s turning out to be.   So, I just keep going day to day trying to deal with an obnoxious roommate whose financial help is not helping much at all and don’t even get me started about work.  It can hardly be called a job right now since nobody up here is even shopping anymore.  This economy fucking sucks!

So I spent tonight creating listings for eBay.  I’ve got a bunch of things I’ll be putting up for auction soon.  I’ll keep you posted but as for family, don’t buy these things, I’m getting rid of them, I don’t want to inherit them again sometime down the road!! If you really want to buy any of the items, I’ll gladly sell them to you but please don’t give them back to me.  I have to start thinning down this house.  I have too much shit and it needs to just disappear.  I’m not willing to just give it away for free.  I need the money and lord knows I’ve got plenty of time to screw around with eBay.

Here’s another picture for you. I thought this was pretty funny.  Now Sarah and Brian don’t freak out.  Iowa appears to be part of Dumbfuckistan but remember you are not native to that part of the country.  Your birth place will always be Michigan which at least right now is still part of America.  It’s where you are born that counts you know. =)

I’ve been following some of the politics lately from the Iowa Caucus to the Hew Hampshire primary.  In the words of Thom Hartman (Talk Left Sirius Radio), is America more racist or is it more misogynistic?  Clearly this race will be between a black man and a woman.  The Republicans don’t have much of a chance at this point unless something major changes.  I think it’s awesome that finally we’ve come to a point in this country where it is perfectly acceptable for EITHER to be our president (some of the back woods boys up here clearly don’t however – racist, sexist, inbreeders that they are).  Anyhow, the Michigan Primary is coming up shortly, I’ll be interested to see how that turns out.