• Traditional marriage – This term is used almost exclusively by the religious right as their argument of why two people of the same sex should not be able to marry.  They claim same-sex marriage will “destroy traditional marriage”.  I have news for you… divorce destroys traditional marriage, not loving gay and lesbian couples in committed relationships.  In the last election, I find it interesting that the county with the highest divorce rate (Lincoln County, WA) that 75% of the voters rejected Washington State’s Referendum 71.  So much for the “traditional marriage” argument.
• Let’s take this offline – This phrase belongs in the long list of corporate bullshit words and phrases, some of which include “Are we on the same page?”, “Think outside the box”, “at the end of the day” and “out of the loop”.
• Let’s get together sometime – If I had a penny for everytime someone used this phrase in Seattle, I would be wealthier than Bill Gates.  This has to be the most non-committal statement I have ever heard.  Out of politeness, people use this phrase but often have no intention of ever getting together.  The next time someone says this to me, that person can expect a call within three days to plan our get-together.  “Get together sometime” will no longer mean “never”.
• That’s so gay – I often hear this phrase from teens and younger people to describe something they don’t like.  Bottom line, kids… it’s homophobic, stop it!
• Playdate – When I was growing up, I would go over to the neighbor’s house and go play with the neighbor kids whenever I wanted.  Now, parents schedule a “playdate” for their children with other children to play.  How busy have our lives become that we actually have to schedule playtime for our children?  Is it because parents have their child so scheduled with soccer, karate, cub scouts, etc. that they have to schedule play for them too?  I’m single and childless… how come I never get to have a “playdate”?
• The site is down – This really has nothing to do with the message or the messenger, but more to do with the fact that a human is notifying me of this fact.  Web sites can go down unexpectedly and for multiple reasons.  The problem is that they only go down when I’m in bed, on a plane or using the toilet.  Once decent monitoring is in place with the help of RightScale, I hope to get notified by an automated alert before a human even discovers that something has failed on the site and calls me to utter this annoying phrase.
• You need to be more positive – I hear this phrase from both pessimists and optimists… probably because I am neither… I am a realist.  For example, if the dog had an accident on the floor, the optimist would say, “Look on the bright side, at least the dog didn’t have a bowel movement on your pillow”, whereas the pessimist would say, “Shit!  The dog shit on the floor.  This is a really shitty day”.  I would say, “The dog pooped on the floor”.  I state what is true.  You don’t have to like that I state things the way I see them, but just because something is real, doesn’t mean it’s a negative thing.  It is what it is.

My long-neglected blog now has a new look and feel, plus I have added new social networking features so that it better integrates into Facebook and Twitter. I plan on doing more posts about PHP and Zend Framework to make my blog more interesting to read.

Unfortunately, there continues to be a lot of unhealthy and self-destructive behavior in the gay community, even in a gay-friendly city like Seattle.  Substance abuse, risky sexual activity and unresolved emotional issues are all too commonplace.  Gay bars and the online community (such as gay.com and Manhunt) have not proven to be very good sources for making promising connections for friendship or romance.  Social and activity groups do exist in the Seattle area and I have met some friendly people… but even in those circles there is unhealthy behavior which goes on.

So where do I go to seek out connections which could increase the possibility of finding a life partner who is emotionally healthy?  That’s a good question.

Last year I posted a blog entry about how much snow fell in Spokane in January.  Well, this is December and it snowed a lot more than last year (over 36 inches in a week).  That’s just too much damn snow to fall in just one week.  This year I thought I would be more prepared for this much snow, but my preparations have not been perfect.  For example, I made sure the snow blower was working properly at the beginning of the season, but I managed to break the clutch cable.  The other major thing I have this winter is the Subaru with all-wheel drive, but despite it’s snow going ability, I managed to get it stuck in a snowbank coming off 29th avenue.  With the help of a nearby neighbor and some passers-by on snowshoes, we freed the car from the snowbank.  Tomorrow, I am returning to the now snow-free streets of Seattle.

• PG&E
• Levi Strauss & Co.
• Google
• Amgen
• Morgan Hotel Group
• Apple Inc.
• Clear Channel
• Salesforce.com

I know there are other businesses and individuals who contributed to the No on Prop 8 campaign and they deserve to be acknowledged for their efforts as well.

I say, “Welcome to the White House, President Obama”.

In California, the gay community has been dealt a hard blow with no thanks to the Mormon Church.  Proposition 8 has passed and gay and lesbian couples will no longer be able to marry.  The largest contributor to the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign, if you follow the trail of dirty money, is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah.  (Yes, that would be the same city I visited in June, 2007, where I walked around Temple Square with a big cup of Starbucks Coffee).  Dan Savage at The Stranger posted a very interesting letter with a suggested response to the California vote.

Read it here

I had evaluated the Zend Framework about a year and a half ago, just shortly after it’s version 1.0 release.  At that time, I was disappointed with the performance of the MySQL adaptor in the framework and decided not to use it as my MVC framework.  But now Zend Framework has had some time to mature and I am again looking at using it for all my future development.  Since it is very modular, I can choose which components to use and which components I can extend on my own.  The other tool I plan on using is Zend Studio for Eclipse.  I don’t currently use an IDE, and I think it is time that I start using one.

All in all, it was definitely a worthwhile convention.  I hope to return for ZendCon 2009.

Stick with Obama, you’ll be glad you did