Gay geek from Ohio. 12 years in San Francisco doing eLearning work. Former .com CTO. Now enjoying life a little slower in Vieques, Puerto Rico with my husband.
People keep asking for more pictures of our place here in Vieques, and I keep being lazy about taking and posting them. (There’s so much other more interesting stuff here!) But Brian took lots of shots while he and Paul were here visiting last week.
The first pic is from a distance looking at Barrio Lujan (our neighborhood). We’re about half way up the hill. The rest are all around the house or views from the house.
Our friends Brian and Paul are here to visit from San Francisco. Brian has been taking a ton of great photos and I’ll probably share them in several batches.
This set is from a hike we did out to the ruins of the lighthouse out on the wildlife refuge in Puerto Ferro. (Located here: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=18.096235,-65.423595&spn=0.008546,0.009656&t=h&z=17 ) This has become one of my favorite spots on Vieques. I love taking runs out to there because it’s such a reward when you approach the cliffs and the road opens up to the amazing vista you can see in Brian’s pictures.
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The UPS guy delivered 8 new lights for us today. The lights we had on our porch were just nasty. Cheap, old plastic things that had turned all yellow. I found the new lights online (from a place that delivers to PR; surprising how many don’t!) at a good price. I liked the clean, somewhat nautical look. I got eight: 5 for our wraparound porch, and 3 for the hall and bathrooms.
I started installing them this afternoon. I was pretty grossed-out when I removed the first of the old lights. (The one in the pics.) The top part was completely filled with dead bugs, cocoons, tiny nests of leaf parts, and I’m not sure what else. Clearly these fixtures were not intended for outdoor use! The screws inside were totally rusted, but came out with some effort. And after that the new fixture went up with no problem and looks great. Score 1 for me!
On the next one, there’s only one screw. The other one had apparently rusted completely away and the remaining one would not budge. The bond between the screw and electrical box was stronger than the actual screw and I ended up twisting the top half of the screw completely off. We’re going to have to have the whole electrical box replaced. It’s embedded in the cement roof, so this will not be a minor fix. John 1; Vieques 1.
The next one had one screw that came out and one that wouldn’t. I got the new light up, but it’s not really solid. We’re going to have to replace that electrical box too. John 1.5; Vieques 1.5.
The rest of the project was a complete success. I had to hammer out some extra concrete around the boxes in the interior ceiling, but all the rest went in fine and look great!
Final score: John 6.5; Vieques 1.5
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The sunset tonight was amazing!! The pics don’t do it justice.
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One of the best things about Vieques is that even on one of the busiest days of the year you can have a beautiful beach mostly to yourself. We decided to spend the first day of the year at our favorite off-the-beaten-path beach. It was a perfect snorkel day and Chris and I each took a trip out. Charlotte had fun digging up crabs as usual.
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Every time I go back to Ohio to visit the family my mother
has a new box of crap memorabilia from my childhood to go through. I’m
still expunging 20 year old report cards from my life and expect I probably will
be for 20 years to come. I must be in a masochistic mood today, because I’ve
decided to share a few random photos from high school that were part of the
last batch. Yes, that’s me at my junior prom in a white tux with a pink
bow tie and Kirk Cameron poodle hair. It just doesn’t get more 1986 than
that!
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My mother is spreading fear and hate.
Now, my mother is in no way a hateful person. She would never knowingly spread fear and hate. But she was poisoned by a nugget of fear and hate subtly wrapped in many layers of what’s Right and tricked into passing it along.
She thought she was just forwarding an email in remembrance of those lost in the Holocaust. And that’s the Right thing to do. Right?
The motivation behind this email according to its original author is:
This week, the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offended ' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.
Kinda scary, huh? And it sounds Right. There are lots of Muslims in the UK, Right? And those wimpy Brits are always caving into this kind of stuff, Right?
But it’s not True. According to Snopes.com, this email has been circulating in some form since April 2007. The grain of Truth is that one isolated school did stop teaching about the Holocaust. So, saying “the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum” is like saying “the US removed Evolution from its school curriculum” since some particular school in the rural South decided to stop teaching Darwin. It’s taking a little something True and expanding it into a general lie that just happens to sound like it might be Right. All in the name of spreading fear and hate.
(Extra Credit: Is my argument True or does it just sound Right? How many public schools in the US have actually stopped teaching evolution?)
The email is insidiously effective because of the fundamental principle behind all propaganda: it’s easy to believe what sounds Right; it’s much much harder to determine what’s True.
The email says:
It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the, 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beat, experimented on and humiliated ' while the German people looked the other way!
It’s certainly Right that we should remember those 1,900 Catholic priests. It’s also True that 50,000 people were imprisoned as homosexuals, 5,000 to 15,000 of whom went to concentration camps.
It’s Right that we should be horrified about Nazi doctors experimenting on people just because they were a group branded inferior. It’s also True that the U.S. Public Health Service did the same thing as recently as 1972. They intentionally misled and withheld treatment to 399 poor black men in Alabama so that they could study the effects of syphilis.
It’s not easy for Americans to hear about the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment because it doesn’t fit what we know to be Right about America, land of the free and home of the brave. Sounds Right is easy. True is hard. But in 1997 President Clinton finally had the courage to tell the Truth:
"The United States government did something that was wrong—deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens..."
This particular email is actually very well crafted. I didn’t really question the UK school thing at first and focused on the anti-Holocaust message as intended. (It has lots of horrific photos to keep your attention.) It took me a while to see it for what it is; to unwrap the layers of Right to clearly see the message of fear and hate at the core. It’s particularly clever to disguise a message of fear about Muslims in a message condemning the Holocaust. It’s also particularly shameful to defile the memory of those victims in order to spread yet another generation of hate.
The end of the email finally delivers the punch line that the rest has set up:
How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center , 'NEVER HAPPENED ' because it offends some Muslim in the U.S. ??????
It’s Right that we should remember the attack on the World Trade Center and condemn those who did it. But is it actually True that U.S. Muslims deny it that it happened? or see it as less than a criminal act of terrorism?
How do you know? Can you tell me the names of some U.S. Muslims who feel one way or the other?
Are you happy to believe this generalized message of fear and hate? To lump all Muslims together as terrorists?
To turn a bit of the author’s language back on itself: This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each [person] is giving into it.
Don’t let yourself be taken in by blanket messages of fear and hate without questioning them.
Have the courage to look beyond what you feel sounds Right to find what is actually True.
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We went to the French Laundry (the west coast’s only Michelin 3 star restaurant) for lunch on Sunday. It was a truly amazing experience.
The food was masterful, but with a sense of humor here and there. (Little tuna tartare “ice cream cones”. Doughnuts and coffee [mousse].)
The service was outstanding, but never even hinting toward snooty. (The front of house manager introduced himself as “Larry” and shook hands with a welcoming smile.)
The presentation was dramatic (white truffles paraded around in a box like a holy relic) but never over the top.
(OK, if you’re not a foodie, I can see how, taken out of context, the truffle sacrament might seem a wee bit over the top. In the pics you can see the high priest (Larry) shaving the white truffles over Lee’s risotto. In the next pic you can see Chris’ bowl covered in an almost obscene amount of the sacred fungus.)
I’ve started a MUCH longer post with all the details, but 14 courses over 5 hours makes for a lot to write about! So I decided to post this as an amuse-bouche.
[Hmmm... either Outlook or Posterous seems to have changed the image order. If you look at the bottom row first, then the top row, you'll have them in order.]
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Our friends Jane and Dorian have always been a source of new and interesting things in our lives. In fact, they first introduced us to Vieques. Having recently sent their son off to college, they were planning to move there. We were very excited about the thought of all of us being in tropical paradise together, but it was not meant to be. (Jane says we stole their lives. I say they reneged on the deal. But we’re all happy with the reason.)
Today they had two new things to add to my life: Bo's Barbecue in Lafayette and their amazing new son Parker!! We had a such great time catching up on the Vieques gossip, playing with Parker, eating brisket and ribs, playing with Parker, drinking Belgian beer, and playing with Parker.
I can’t wait to take Parker to Playa la Chiva for the first time!
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We’ve spent the past many Thanksgivings with our friends Glenn and Amy and our god children Maya and Nicholas, so I’m very happy we are back in the SF Bay area to continue the tradition this year. As usual, everything was delicious: starting with warm cider with Maker’s Mark and prosciutto wrapped figs; on to the smoked turkey, sausage stuffing, and sweet potato/apple casserole; and finishing with pumpkin and berry pies. Yuuuummm!!
With all the crazy stuff going on in the world, I am truly thankful that we can share peaceful happy times like these with the people we love.
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