So, I’d like to admit that I only watched about the last 30 or so minutes of the SOTU last night. In truth I had no doubt that Obama would deliver a great speech. He’s an incredible orator. I’m just at the point that I want actions...I want the change I was promised, not more eloquently spoken words.
I did catch his statement about working with Congress to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. He has made this statement numerous times and to be honest it kinda just ticked me off to hear it again. I am done with the verbal crumbs Obama throws to his GLBT constituents. I want ACTION.
I have discussed my disgust with DADT and this administration's lack of action with a few friends, both straight and gay. Although all agreed the policy should be ended a few (gay and straight) were okay with the lack of an actual timeline. “He is so busy, he has so much on his plate, he can't spare the political capital, he can’t change our nation overnight...”
Listen, I’m not an idiot. I realize all our problems cannot be solved in a matter of a day, a year or 4 years. But, you have to actually start crossing things off the list if you ever hope to accomplish anything. The things that can be tackled should be and DADT is something that could be stopped immediately. With one signature Mr. Obama could stop it. It is completely within his power- no Congress, no lobbyists, no votes- just a signature.
"... the President may suspend any provision of law relating to promotion, retirement, or separation applicable to any member of the armed forces who the President determines is essential to the national security of the United States" Title 10, United States Code, Section 12305(a)
So why doesn’t he?? Why in a time of war does my President do nothing but give lip service about this issue? Why is my President allowing the loss of soldiers at a time when we’re sending surge after surge to the Middle East? Why does my President not end this blatant discrimination?
Because he’s busy is not a valid excuse to me...to save political capital isn’t either. This isn't some outlandish idea- this is exactly how President Truman ended segregation in our armed forces.
Nothing annoyed me more than the way supporters of George W. Bush blindly followed him without criticism. I am now seeing this same kind of thoughtless defense of Obama with the same results to my blood pressure.
Let’s stop making excuses and demand action.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
closing dinner
We had a great time at the closing dinner of the conference last Friday. The theme this year was aCADemy Awards or something cheesy to that effect. Tons of people dressed up as their favorite characters from movies including us...Hannibal and Clarice.
It's always a good thing to have the chance to hang out with everyone one last time before they scattered to the different corners of the world...
It's always a good thing to have the chance to hang out with everyone one last time before they scattered to the different corners of the world...
Monday, January 25, 2010
helloooo midtown, it has been a while
we're all moved into our corporate digs. it's weird being back in midtown after all these years...it's changed a lot since i was 21, but then again i guess i have too. both for the better i hope. thank god.
the trude and i enjoyed a very long walk in piedmont on this sunny (finally!!) and blustery winter day. along the way we stopped to enjoy the view and bark at some geese...
the trude and i enjoyed a very long walk in piedmont on this sunny (finally!!) and blustery winter day. along the way we stopped to enjoy the view and bark at some geese...
Monday, January 18, 2010
she's baaaaaack
My current life provides me with more “me” time than I’d normally require. I have hours upon hours alone each day to fill in in different ways in various locations. Since leaving Puerto Rico I’ve had none. Zero alone time means no real time to think or reflect, much less write.
I decided to skip breakfast with the girls this morning and try to get a hold on everything that is scattered around this hotel room and my thoughts.
Soooo, home leave in a nutshell:
We came home to Atlanta to spend a few days with friends before heading out to the families. We saw Santaland Diaries and had some great brunches, lunches, dinners and drinks catching up. We headed north and visited my Grams and got to see some long lost fam of mine, which was great. Then we headed south where we ate, ate and ate some more, had a visit from Santa and spent time with the fam and friends in Albany.We then came home and celebrated the new year with dear friends and a great meal…
Then we continued the tour of friends with a trip to Athens, played in the snow, came down with a case of cabin fever and were cured by a 30th birthday and a very cautious cab driver…
A day or so later we moved into the hotel and the conference began. In one night we were sucked back into our other life…friends from all corners of the world that we hadn’t seen in months some in even a year were all together again and since then we’ve yet to really come up for air.
Although we did pull away for our night at Woodfire Grill with my favorite guys and it was AMAZING! I’ll be sure to get up the pics and review on the food blog soon. Until then you can feast on this…
We’ve got one more week of the conference, one more week of living in this weird black hole in Buckhead where we feel a million miles away from Atlanta and all our friends here.
Saturday we move into our corporate apartment in Midtown and relieve Pablo of dog duty because we get to have our little monkey come live with us! It will be sad to say goodbye to friends who we may or may not see this year but thankfully a good handful of them will be here in Atlanta with us.
I’m anxious to introduce and merge these two lives a little over the next 7 weeks, to really catch up with all of you that we’ve missed so much and of course living with this little terror…
I decided to skip breakfast with the girls this morning and try to get a hold on everything that is scattered around this hotel room and my thoughts.
Soooo, home leave in a nutshell:
We came home to Atlanta to spend a few days with friends before heading out to the families. We saw Santaland Diaries and had some great brunches, lunches, dinners and drinks catching up. We headed north and visited my Grams and got to see some long lost fam of mine, which was great. Then we headed south where we ate, ate and ate some more, had a visit from Santa and spent time with the fam and friends in Albany.We then came home and celebrated the new year with dear friends and a great meal…
Then we continued the tour of friends with a trip to Athens, played in the snow, came down with a case of cabin fever and were cured by a 30th birthday and a very cautious cab driver…
A day or so later we moved into the hotel and the conference began. In one night we were sucked back into our other life…friends from all corners of the world that we hadn’t seen in months some in even a year were all together again and since then we’ve yet to really come up for air.
Although we did pull away for our night at Woodfire Grill with my favorite guys and it was AMAZING! I’ll be sure to get up the pics and review on the food blog soon. Until then you can feast on this…
We’ve got one more week of the conference, one more week of living in this weird black hole in Buckhead where we feel a million miles away from Atlanta and all our friends here.
Saturday we move into our corporate apartment in Midtown and relieve Pablo of dog duty because we get to have our little monkey come live with us! It will be sad to say goodbye to friends who we may or may not see this year but thankfully a good handful of them will be here in Atlanta with us.
I’m anxious to introduce and merge these two lives a little over the next 7 weeks, to really catch up with all of you that we’ve missed so much and of course living with this little terror…
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
hiatus
obviously, i'm on one with regards to the blog and probably will be until the initial craziness of our return subsides.
hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and wish you all a happy new year!
hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and wish you all a happy new year!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
as promised
behold, the wonders of an alien seeking radiotelescope...
who says that $100 million was a waste of money? obviously, that thing is working...
who says that $100 million was a waste of money? obviously, that thing is working...
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
2009...
With a blink of the eye it has arrived, the end of our first year is upon us and we’re left baffled by how these eleven months have escaped us.
From the places we’ve seen, to the things we’ve done, to the people we’ve met it has been a year swollen with memories and experiences.
When we land in Atlanta on Friday we’ll have 60 flights, 40 hotels, 5 continents, 20 countries and over 50 cities under our belt. From North America to Asia to Europe to Africa to South America back to Asia and finally back to North America we’ve cut quite the path this year. It makes me tired just typing it. But, somewhere we found the energy and even wanted more when we were limited by our location.
Now, as the year draws to a close we’re ready for home, for our friends, for our families, for southern food and Christmas. We’ve gotten over the initial disappointment of not traveling the first round and embraced a chance to recharge, regroup and reconnect.
All I can do as I reflect on this year is say my heart is truly full of overwhelming gratitude. Gratitude for this incredible opportunity, for the experiences we’ve had, for the places we’ve seen, for our safe journeys and the safe journeys of our new friends, for our old friends who stayed in touch, for our friends that came to see us, for our families that forgave us our distance, for being missed and having people to miss, for the memories we’ve created, for all the laughter, all the tears, all the joy and the sheer frustration you experience while living abroad…I’m grateful for it all. It seems an impossible feat to sum it all up or resurrect all the hundreds of memories and gather them up in one place.
These are but a few from what has been an unbelievably incredible year…
From the places we’ve seen, to the things we’ve done, to the people we’ve met it has been a year swollen with memories and experiences.
When we land in Atlanta on Friday we’ll have 60 flights, 40 hotels, 5 continents, 20 countries and over 50 cities under our belt. From North America to Asia to Europe to Africa to South America back to Asia and finally back to North America we’ve cut quite the path this year. It makes me tired just typing it. But, somewhere we found the energy and even wanted more when we were limited by our location.
Now, as the year draws to a close we’re ready for home, for our friends, for our families, for southern food and Christmas. We’ve gotten over the initial disappointment of not traveling the first round and embraced a chance to recharge, regroup and reconnect.
All I can do as I reflect on this year is say my heart is truly full of overwhelming gratitude. Gratitude for this incredible opportunity, for the experiences we’ve had, for the places we’ve seen, for our safe journeys and the safe journeys of our new friends, for our old friends who stayed in touch, for our friends that came to see us, for our families that forgave us our distance, for being missed and having people to miss, for the memories we’ve created, for all the laughter, all the tears, all the joy and the sheer frustration you experience while living abroad…I’m grateful for it all. It seems an impossible feat to sum it all up or resurrect all the hundreds of memories and gather them up in one place.
These are but a few from what has been an unbelievably incredible year…
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Sunday, Pouring Sunday
Our last weekend in Puerto Rico…I have to say there hasn’t been much I’ve been dying to see or do here. After multiple vacations to this lovely island there just isn’t much left to pique my interest. Also, it’s the last weekend of the travel year so it's going to need to be something pretty spectacular to make me want to get up early on a Saturday.
But, we had planned to see the Camuy Caves and Arecibo Observatory and after wimping out on Saturday we finally made the 90 minute trip on Sunday morning.
We arrived at the Camuy Caves with clouds looming. Everything I had read or heard said “if it rains at all they will close the caves”. Warnings from like every other person on trip advisor “watch the weather!!!”…well not sure who was in charge on Sunday but they had no problem taking us down in the pouring rain.
Had I come prepared with my quick-dry shorts and raincoat I would have been fine. I’ve spent many a weekend getting soaked to the bone and loved every minute of it. I was not prepared.
The caves themselves were pretty impressive. It was a much shorter tour than I had expected but hey we got to wear hardhats so that was cool…
Because Murphy’s Law was apparently ruling that day it had stopped raining for our entire duration underground only to start pouring again as we made our way back up. The Arecibo Observatory was about 20 minutes away and when we arrived my shorts and t-shirt were still soaked…and it was still raining.
We were told it was about 500 steps up to the observatory and that was when I had had my fill. There may have been a minor meltdown half-way up where I seriously toyed with going to back to the car to wait while they did the tour.
The Arecibo is the world’s largest radiotelescope. It was featured in that movie “Contact” and is ran by Cornell University to search for radio signals from distant galaxies in hopes of finding other forms of life. Yep, this $100 million dollar piece of equipment is there to search for aliens.
It was impressive as far as its size and its space-station quality aesthetics. The best part of the place was that we got to take pictures with an alien…that and MJ lent me $2 for an awesome coconut ice cream bar. I’ve still got to get the photos from MJ but will post when I do…of the alien, not the ice cream.
It was wet day with some mediocre sights but, when we got back my pants were fairly dry and we ordered a pitcher of margaritas at lunch. So, all in all still a pretty good Sunday!
But, we had planned to see the Camuy Caves and Arecibo Observatory and after wimping out on Saturday we finally made the 90 minute trip on Sunday morning.
We arrived at the Camuy Caves with clouds looming. Everything I had read or heard said “if it rains at all they will close the caves”. Warnings from like every other person on trip advisor “watch the weather!!!”…well not sure who was in charge on Sunday but they had no problem taking us down in the pouring rain.
Had I come prepared with my quick-dry shorts and raincoat I would have been fine. I’ve spent many a weekend getting soaked to the bone and loved every minute of it. I was not prepared.
The caves themselves were pretty impressive. It was a much shorter tour than I had expected but hey we got to wear hardhats so that was cool…
Because Murphy’s Law was apparently ruling that day it had stopped raining for our entire duration underground only to start pouring again as we made our way back up. The Arecibo Observatory was about 20 minutes away and when we arrived my shorts and t-shirt were still soaked…and it was still raining.
We were told it was about 500 steps up to the observatory and that was when I had had my fill. There may have been a minor meltdown half-way up where I seriously toyed with going to back to the car to wait while they did the tour.
The Arecibo is the world’s largest radiotelescope. It was featured in that movie “Contact” and is ran by Cornell University to search for radio signals from distant galaxies in hopes of finding other forms of life. Yep, this $100 million dollar piece of equipment is there to search for aliens.
It was impressive as far as its size and its space-station quality aesthetics. The best part of the place was that we got to take pictures with an alien…that and MJ lent me $2 for an awesome coconut ice cream bar. I’ve still got to get the photos from MJ but will post when I do…of the alien, not the ice cream.
It was wet day with some mediocre sights but, when we got back my pants were fairly dry and we ordered a pitcher of margaritas at lunch. So, all in all still a pretty good Sunday!
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