Frater Taltos

In a 4 to 3 ruling today, the California Supreme Court has ruled that banning same sex marriages is unconstitutional. The approximately 146 page opinion, written by the Chief Justice, states that marriage is a basic and fundamental right for all persons regardless of whether they are opposite or same sex couples.  The fact that the state has provided legal protections for same sex couples in the form of Domestic Partnerships is NOT enough and the state must allow same sex couples to get married.

As of the latest news report I have seen,  it appears as though we will be able to get our marriage license and get married in 30 days. 

Unfortunately, the battle is still not over. Fundamentalist right-wingers have already launched a campaign to put an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment onto the ballot in November, although we have yet to learn if they have actually achieved the necessary number of valid signatures on their petitions.

I have to believe, however, that once we are able to get married in 30 days the general public is going to see by the November election that marriage in the state is not going to "fall apart" and will vote against any stupid amendment initiative that might show up.

More news later once they finish analyzing all the details in that huge opinion that came out of the court and we find out what exactly it means.

Well, it's been a long time now since I posted here, so I decided to do a catch-up. 

First and foremost, I am a member of the unemployed again. The short and sweet of it is that we hired a new VP of Engineering at the company I worked for about a year ago, who I unfortunately recommended at the time. The bad news is, he turned out to be one of the most horrible, worthless manager I've ever had the misfortune to run across in my entire career. 

The trouble started last fall when I got my annual review from him - only 3 months late. After 6 months of working for the company and giving me ZERO feedback as my "mentor" and manager the entire time, he gave me a review saying that I was average and below average in all areas being evaluated. His claim was that I was not enough of a "hands on" manager for my team and that I did not know how to mentor my team members - I big laugh considering his total lack of understanding of the concept himself.  He also left out most of my accomplishments from the review, while over emphasizing the few areas that were problems - of course with no attempt to have addressed our mentored me in any way during that time to teach me how he thought I could have improved them. 

To make a long, long story short, it became a battle between me and the corporate good old boys club, and the good old boys finally won. On March 12th this year, they called me in for a meeting with the VP of HR to discuss "personnel issues" and while I was in there with him, they locked me out of my office, took my laptop away, had a meeting with the entire department to tell them that they had "reorganized" the group and sent everyone home early. I was allowed to come back 2 hours later to pack up my personal belongings with the VP of HR watching me like a criminal to make sure I didn't steal anything and was warned that if I had any contact with any of the employees or told them any of the details about why I was *really* fired, then they would come after me legally.

On the slightly brighter side, at least the VP had a smidgen of a heart, so they gave me 4 weeks of severance pay and the company agreed to pay for 2 months of my COBRA benefits since they know about my and Chris' medical problems. They also agreed to not contest my unemployment claim and issued me a letter stating that I had been let go because of a "layoff due to company reorganization" so that it wouldn't officially look like a firing on my record. On the darker side, what limited stock options I had vested at the time they let me go are so far underwater now, it would take a miracle for them to be worth anything by the time they expire 90 days after my termination date. 

So I've been looking for work now for about 6 months. I've been on several interviews, but unfortunately most of the companies in the area are looking for either Windows/.NET or Java experience, neither of which I've had experience with in the companies I've worked for in the past. I am signed up with a couple of recruiting firms, but so far that hasn't come to much of anything.

I do have a lead on one position which is looking promising. I'm supposed to have a video conference interview over Skype with the founder in a week or two (he's on Paternity Leave right now) and it would be a perfect fit for me - right technology, good team, great potential, lots of future. One tiny little problem, though - it's in Ottawa :( Yeah, that Ottawa, in Ontario, Canada. The place where it snows! However, if it does work out and I get hired, I'll be making considerably more than I was making before, even taking into consideration the exchange rate, and the cost of living up there is a hell of a lot cheaper than it is here to the tune of about $1k a month cheaper for rent. Also, the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of a MAJOR internet travel company that most of you would recognize if you saw the name, so there's good money behind it - it's definitely not a fly-by-night operation that would be going away unexpectedly. So wish me luck! It would be tough to move to another country, but hey! I'm looking at the bright side - at least Chris and I could get married legally and the federal government there would recognize it!

On the fun side of things, about a month before I got fired, we prepaid a trip for 5 nights in Waikiki, Hawaii for the two of us plus Chris' mom. Her 74th birthday is on May 1st and it has been her lifelong dream to go to Hawaii, so while we *thought* things were going good for us we booked the trip to give Mom her dream vacation. Since it's all prepaid and non-refundable, we might as well go ahead and enjoy the trip now and take the opportunity to de-stress.

We're going to stay at the Outrigger Reef hotel in Waikiki, right on the beach. We're booked for partial ocean view rooms, but we're going to play up the "dream vacation", "74th birthday" and the fact that it's also our 10th anniversary trip, and see if they'll take pity and upgrade us to full ocean view rooms when we check in :) Hey, stranger things have happened! We're also planning a trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center and doing a Luau there before the evening show with the Fire Dancers, plus all the other tourist stuff for Mom. While I've been there so many times I've lost count, and Chris went there once before with me, this is her trip, so we'll do everything we can to make it special for her.

So we're taking off early, early Tuesday morning, but Mom is coming in from Indiana tomorrow. The rest of today we get to finish cleaning the house before she gets here, so we don't look like total pigs when she comes for the night :) 

Rather than posting about the trip here, which isn't exactly a blog I advertise to everyone on my life, I'm going to be posting about the trip on a travel blog site.  If anyone is interested (and why wouldn't you be? huh?!?!) you can check it out here: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/bobchrisvp/1/tpod.html

p.s. I ran spellcheck on this post, and it flagged the word "blog" as a spelling error - how hilarious!

Equality California urges you to put your signature on the 2007 Marriage Petition.

Why? Because California lawmakers have once again made history by passing AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act. For the second time, the Legislature has passed a bill, authored by Assemblymember Mark Leno and sponsored by EQCA, granting same-sex couples the choice to marry.

Sign the petition .

In 2005, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the marriage bill, and now we have a second chance to urge him to support fairness and equality for all Californians. We have a second chance to let the governor know that we aren’t going anywhere – and that our numbers are growing.

Help us send 10,000 signatures to the governor. Sign the petition now. Then ask 10 of your friends, family members and colleagues to do the same thing. This is the kind of message that only works when each of us takes a moment to sign the petition, and then asks as many friends as possible to sign it too.

A couple thousand signatures aren’t enough. The governor’s office just won’t pay attention. That’s why we need an all-out push, and we need it today.

It only takes a moment to make a difference. Sign your name  and join us as we send the governor our united message – loud and clear – that all Californians should be able to marry the person they love.

 (Trying to get the word out, so please excuse me if you see this crossposted anywhere - FraterTaltos)
 

GayWired reporting

I got to playing around after organizing my DVDs and downloading some fonts, and I found a really cool "Babylon 5" font on a free font site. So, typical weird thinker that I am, I came up with a new graphic for my CafePress Thelema93 products. If you're a fan of Babylon 5, then you should really appreciate this one :)


You can check out the products at http://www.cafepress.com/thelema93/2425932

OK, it's official - the world has gone crazy!

Several inches of snow were reported today in Malibu and Beverly Hills!!!! Malibu is about 8 miles from our current apartment in Calabasas, and the reported snow in Beverly Hills was about 4 miles from our old place in West Hollywood. 

Who'd of thunk it?

The weather forecast for tomorrow and Friday is calling for snow. Yes, snow, in Van Nuys, Woodland Hills, Calabasas, Agoura Hills and Thousand Oaks.

Go figure!

So much for global warming :)

And especially for my friend fraterseraphinohere's a new t-shirt design in my CafePress perldevgeek shop:

I got to feeling a bit creative this weekend, which is pretty rare for me, so I upgraded PaintShop Pro and threw out a few designs I had been thinking about for a while now. Thanks to a post from christeos_pir I discovered CafePress, so i decided to open a shop there, just for the heck of it. (Yes, CP, you got credit for the new shop!)

I'd like to think my designs are somewhat unique and a little bit whimsical, but still Thelemic in nature. Just FYI - all (if any) procedes from the shop will be going to the OTO, either in the form of supplementing my dues or if I actually sell enough to make more than that (yeah, right) anything left over will be donated directly the USGL. If I ever make up my mind and finally join a local body, that might change, but either way it will all go back to the order somehow.

If you're curious about my designs, check out the full post below. If you wanna check out the merchandise itself, you can see it at http://www.cafepress.com/thelema93.

The Rainbow Bridge

"There's a bridge connecting Heaven and Earth. It is called the Rainbow Bridge because of its many colors. Just this side of the Rainbow Bridge is a verdant land of meadows, hills, and valleys with lush green grass.

When a beloved pet passes, the pet goes to this place. There is always food and water and warm spring weather. Old and ill and frail animals are made whole. They play all day with each other in the beautiful sunshine.

They are happy and content, but there is one thing missing. They are not with their special person who loved them on Earth. So, each day, they run and play until the day comes when suddenly, one stops playing and looks up! The nose twitches! The eyes are staring! And this one suddenly runs from the group!

You have been seen, and when you and your special friend meet, you take him or her into your arms and embrace. Your face is kissed again and again, and you look once more into the eyes of your trusting pet.

Then you cross the Rainbow Bridge together, never again to be separated...."

Author Anonymous

Today was, without a doubt, one of the most difficult days of my life. 

Misty (aka Mama) had finally reached the end of her days. We had known for a while that she wasn't doing well, so it wasn't a total surprise for us, but that didn't make the decision any easier, not by a long shot. In fact, I think knowing ahead of time what we were going to have to do made it much worse than if we had just found her one morning having died in her sleep. 

Misty was, as close as we can tell, about 25 years old. She was blind, had high blood pressure, her kidney's were failing. Just recently, in the last couple of weeks, she started not being able to make it to the litter box, stopped grooming herself and was losing hair to the point of getting large bald spots on her body. So, regretfully, we made the appointment and drove the 30 miles back to our old vet in West Hollywood this afternoon.

Our normal vet, Dr. Todd, wasn't in the hospital today but one of their newer associates Dr. Arnold saw us almost immediately. After examining her, he told us that she was indeed a very sick kitty, with very little muscle mass left and that while she didn't appear to be in pain at this point, she didn't really have much left in the way of quality of life. We agreed that while it wasn't what we wanted, it was what we thought was best for her.

After a brief time in the back of the clinic to put an IV catheter in her arm, she came back into the exam room. Chris & I said our good byes to her, our little baby that we had been graced with 8 1/2 years ago totally out of the blue. Then, with her in her favorite position - lying back in my arms getting a belly rub, the Dr gave her the shots so that she gently went to sleep, knowing the whole time that she was truly loved, held in the arms of her daddy. Once she was asleep, he gave her the final shot that stopped her heart.

While we are heartbroken, I have to give major kudos to Dr.Arnold. He was very understanding and compassionate, and patiently explained every step of the process both before hand and during the procedure. He also said it was a testament to us "two dads" that she had even made it to the age of 25 which is virtually unheard of for a cat.  

We made it home afterwards and the two little ones are obviously confused - Delenn keeps going around the house poking in all the corners and stuff, obviously looking for Misty who she's known her entire life. Even little Cole, who's only been with us for 4 months show signs of missing her, and both are sticking to us like glue most of the time. 

Misty will always be in our hearts and our memories, but I can't help think of what we won't have any more: sleeping by my feet at night, curled up on my lap while watching tv, laying back in my arms getting her belly rubbed, with the motor going in high speed & the happy feet making imaginary biscuits in the air as she drooled out the side of her mouth getting me all wet. Even watching her curl up into her famous "baby seal" pose while sleeping on the floor.  I am happy, however, that she is not going to be in pain and she lived a good long life.


Misty Vastine-Parker
1981 - 2006
She Will Be Missed!

I just had to share these two pictures we took in the past day or so. I know, it's cliche for the gay couple with their pets as kids, etc., etc., but they're so damned cute!


Cole just turns on the "cuteness switch" when he sleeps.


Cat-In-The-Box Anyone?

Scanning in a bunch of old pictures, I ran into this one, a picture of the kids in the Computer Club back in high school. See that ultra-modern monochrome remote terminal we worked on?



I don't remember much in the way of details about the mainframe it connected to, I just remember it was some variant of Unix and my first introduction to multiuser, realtime multitasking computers. Is it any wonder I spend practically every day now working on Linux boxes?

Fun, huh? :)

Well, Cole is getting settled in and the family seems to be getting a bit more sane, at least at the feline level. Here's a quick update with some recent photos. Hey what can I say - I'm a proud Papa, so I gotta show off the pics of the kids!

Yep, we just couldn't resist it - we had to go out and adopt again yesterday. A kitten, that is.

With Misty about 23 now, blind and with kidneys failing, we don't think she's going to be gracing us with her majestic presence much longer. With Delenn only 5 and quite active, we wanted to give her a new playmate and maybe take some of the pressure off Misty from Delenn's rough-housing, not to mention giving her a friend to be with after Misty does go.

So Chris & I trotted off to the SPCA LA Adoption Center in Woodland Hills yesterday. It only took us about 5 minutes to fall completely in love with the most precious 4 month old black short hair kitty they named "Minky". After filling out the paperwork, and gaining the admiration of the staff there for having a 23 year old cat at home, we finally got to cuddle with him for a bit. After a few minutes getting to know us, he promptly settled back in my arm with his belly up for scratching, making happy feet on my arm and purring loud enough to drown out the background noise from the mall.

Unfortunately, we don't get to pick him up until tomorrow. :( He hadn't been neutered yet, so we get to pick him up at the vet tomorrow after his snip-snip is done, then bring him back to introduce him to his new sisters. Keeping our fingers crossed that they get along OK!