Last post was a day over a month ago. Facebook is sucking me in and I don't like it because I don't have a record of my ruminations like I do here my my lj. Oh well.

Gracie is in the shop so I did public transport yesterday. I'd just taken my seat on the train last evening when my phone rang - my youngest was calling me. He greeted me and then asked if I had $1000 to borrow. I said no. He laughed and said that he was just starting out our phone conversation in the traditional way. He was really calling just to catch up.

His wife is at 34 weeks and things are going well. They are staying in Wichita until after the baby is born. He's had only two job opportunities that looked interesting -- neither of them ideal -- and didn't get either. So they have to stay put until something more compelling comes along.

We plan to stop by the 27/28th of June on our way back home from our road trip to the Black Hills.

I'm looking forward to a little holiday. I enjoyed the weekend with Mom for my nephew's college graduation (a couple of weeks ago) but am ready for a bit more "fun things I want to do". It looks like Munchkinlette has passed all her courses and will, in fact, graduate from HS. We all rejoice. I'll expect she'll want to move in with us around her birthday (early August). Lots to do before that happens.

Work is chugging along nicely. I'm getting a little coding in and the folks who are working with me are making progress. There are things that are trying to distract me but I'm working to manage them.

The cats and dog keep us hopping at home. I'm beginning to regret taking on two cats. One is more than enough and my leather furniture has aged more in a few months than it has in years :(.

Another busy week gone by and the lion's share of my energy and focus have gone into work. It's a vocational hazard because I enjoy what I do. Back in '98 when I left Landmark to go to work for a management consulting company, my motivation was to get into a place where I'd have more customer-facing responsibilities. I wanted to grow in soft-skills and get closer to the coalface -- really understand what customers really need and how I could employ my skills to meet that need.

After about 4 years doing that, I came out, got divorced, moved to Houston and subsequently lived out of a couple of suitcases for the next 3 years. In Fall of 2007, I had the opportunity to move back into a development role and I took it.

Now I'm back doing what I love to do -- design, project management, coding, solving software puzzles but with the benefit of having had the experience of seeing things through our customers eyes. I also made the transition during that time from one industry segment to another. My entire career had been developing software for the upstream oil & gas industry. In 2006, I moved to pricing. The benefit to me was that I got to actually use my business undergrad degree and I've enjoyed it immensely whereas in the O&G arena I always felt a bit on the left foot because of a lack of an engineering degree.

So, oddly enough, I'm pretty content in my job even though it consumes me 9-10 hours a day and sometimes on weekends and it's stressful & some days I come in and end up working on urgent things that I couldn't have predicted without getting done the things I planned to do. Predictable and boring it is not.

Then there is the fact that I work with really smart people who challenge me all the time. I like that. Like Jack said to Helen in As Good As It Gets, "You make me want to be a better man."

We went to the Alley Friday night and watch the performance of "Mauritius". It was OK ... the acting was good but it was really hard to care much for a bunch of sleaze-ball characters that the play is about. I told +1 that if it were a TV show, I would have turned it off at the intermission and gone to bed :)

We had dinner at the West Gray Cafe afterwards. We'd been wanting to try it out. Next time "Niko, Niko"

It was a quiet and relaxing weekend with sporadic rain on Saturday and chores on Sunday. I managed to squeeze in a viewing of "Steamboy" and I enjoyed the eye candy. Some of the premise of the story was gunk -- the Japanese (rightfully, probably) love to harp on how science can be used for ill in the world.

I worked a good chunk of Saturday on my Mac via remote desktop getting various work-ish things done that I hadn't managed to finish during the week. It felt good to be caught up and a couple of the things were tasks that I really enjoy -- a bit of a creative element to them.

Church was good. Desperate Housewives and B&S were OK -- I'm tired of the story arc about Senator & Kitty marriage falling apart. Get it over with already. Good story line with Julia.

The right rear tire of the Acura slowly deflated over the weekend so I changed the tire Sunday afternoon and took it in this morning. Not repairable. Fortunately I bought the road hazard warranty on them. I'll take the car back in on Wednesday to get it changed out, get the tires rotated and balanced and the valve stems replaced.

Work's going really well. I'm enjoying the job and we're getting into the swing of the release.

Two of my nephews have called me/texted me within the last week to tell me they've proposed to their sweeties. Something must be in the air. I've met both of their fiance's and I approve in both cases.

Good to see the kids growing up!

I've been trying to get a number of technical stakeholders to agree on how we should approach a feature.

Everybody keeps taking irreconcilable technical positions. I keep taking more swipes at it. Meanwhile, my boss is asking me: when is this work gonna start.

*sigh*

Normal stuff. We'll get there. It comes with the territory of herding cats and I'm actually OK with it.

Munchkinlette has made no progress that I can tell getting enrolled for next autumn -- no FASFA, no application, no working on scholarships. I'm toying with the idea of "laying down the law" by being clear that without some action in those quarters, I don't see why I should have to make accommodations.

The brick wall everybody is beating their head against, in this case, is the mother. Neither father or daughter want to go toe-to-toe with her and I'm watching time march on and nothing has happened.

It's time for something to happen.

We got 8-9" of rain in the space of hours over the weekend. This pushes records that got set during Tropical Storm Allison (the Great Deluge). We did fine -- we simply didn't go out and drive in it though the ditch out front is a bit worse for the wear.

I did get a lot done yesterday -- lots of niggly, little projects that have been bothering me as needing to be done so I did them and felt a small sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

Good night of TV with DH's denouement of Edie and an enjoyable episode of B&S.

It's raining cats and dogs outside as a cold front rolls through and dumps 4" of rain on us in the course of an hour. We need the rain. Space it out please.

A and I were supposed to go see "Mauritious" at the Alley tonight. It's our weekend with the kids and he was unsure whether he could get them picked up, home, changed and down to the theatre in time so I called and exchanged the tix for next Friday. $10. Oh well.

Work's going well. We're starting a new release cycle next week and my team has been resourced up a bit. I've just had my title changed. I don't know what it means except, perhaps, it reflects more closely what I actually do.

I need to head out and get home and figure out food for the night. The kids are suffering from a bit these days. Munchkinlette is counting the days until she's 18 and can get out of the house. Munchkin is acting out at school. It makes for venting-type conversation at the dinner table at the outset of the weekend. Sigh.

I was chuffed to see this entry in TractorGirl's wiblog. What a great pic and excellent thoughtful pondering, as per usual.

Looking forward to having a tipple with her in August.

I got a second summons to jury duty a few weeks back. The first summons must(back in Feb) have gotten delayed in the mail because when I got it and opened it up, it was already past the date I was to appear so I pitched it.

The second summons used a bit more harsh language *and* I got it in time to book time off from work so I deigned to appear this morning.

Apparently, a 30% turnout for summons is a *good* day. Good grief.

I was really impressed with the "user experience" that the Harris County District Clerk's organization runs -- it's clear they've paid attention to the experience of random Joe/Jane Doe attempting to fulfill their civic duty. The treated us with respect (none of that patronizing civil servant speak crap). The District Clerk showed up personally to thank us and his comments were brief and expressed gratitude for our time and presence. They were efficient and prepared ... telling us what to expect and when we might expect it, treating us as responsible adults. They handled a few jury pools and then expeditiously released the rest of us, thanking us again for showing up. They've got big screen TV's and a good PA system in the jury assembly room. They have a snack bar and well-stocked vending machines. They're getting wi-fi installed so those who are waiting and want to do work can. They were organized and ready to handle paperwork en-masse (handing out Metro passes, handling exemptions, writing work releases, writing releases such that jury pay could be donated to a choice of charitable organizations). My overall experience was extremely positive.

It doesn't hurt that Loren Jackson, said clerk, is a bit of a hunk.

Nadia, the "mission developer" (read: pastor) of a self-described "emergent" church in Denver, concisely describes what she thinks is meant by the adjective/handle. I like this because I was asked over lunch yesterday by A Catholic and a member of a MCC church what "post-modernism" means and how it relates to "emergent" churches.

From my perspective, it's all about acknowledging the impact of a cultural framing of reality and that work is required to understand truth beyond the cultural framing.

I think it's a death knell for biblical literalism (a fairly recent and regrettable theological innovation) -- The Holy Spirit *can* and *does* speak across the centuries and cultural divides but it is irrational and an abuse of God's words to insist that the Bible read "plainly and literally" means "just what it says". Given the variant cultural contexts of the writings, the various authors' intended message to their audiences came framed with different cultural common ground and expectations (even contrasted with each other -- the Bible was written over a period of millenia!) A reasonable person would admit that some digging might be required to get at the meaning an author was attempting to convey. That we can read the narratives, history, poetry, song lyrics, essays, pithy bits of wisdom, messages from God, and letters *at all* is a testament to strength of our commonalities of being human over the last 6000 years -- a blink in the eye on the cosmic scale of time within which we've gone from hunter/gatherers practicing oral tradition to the internet age.

Nadia says:

Emerging Church:
Christian communities that emerge out of very particular cultural contexts where the traditional church is basically irrelevant. These cultural contexts are more often than not urban, youngish and post-modern.

(emphasis mine)

H/T to PomoProphet for this interesting comparison.

It doesn't show the crash of '87. The market regained it's value in two years after that one. Counting 5 crashes, I've been a working stiff for four of them: '73, '87, '00 and now *this* one.

My poor 401(K).

Frank Rich writes:

Here, at last, is one piece of good news in our global economic meltdown: Americans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years. Culture wars are a luxury the country — the G.O.P. included — can no longer afford.
...
History is cyclical, and it would be foolhardy to assume that the culture wars will never return. But after the humiliations of the Scopes trial and the repeal of Prohibition, it did take a good four decades for the religious right to begin its comeback in the 1970s. In our tough times, when any happy news can be counted as a miracle, a 40-year exodus for these ayatollahs can pass for an answer to America’s prayers.

Amen and may it be so.

From here.

Money quote:

The number one reason for this, Mr. Spencer explains, is because evangelicals aligned themselves with politics rather than faith.

Six minutes to update before I have to scurry off.

TGIF. We're off to the Alley Theatre tonight for "The Man Who Came to Dinner". Should be fun! Need cash for parking before we go. I renewed for next season and we get parking passes this year, thank God. Hopefully we'll get better seats. I've enjoyed this season and it gives us something to look forward to every couple of months.

No kids (of the human variety) this weekend. It's just us and the furry kids. I'm so looking forward to a nice lie-in on Saturday morning.

I'm learning about data binding, data adapters and hosted controls in Office 2007 and VSTO. Interesting stuff. One of my team members is already looking at VS2010 and says it's better in a number of ways. The inexorable march of technology and continuous learning ...err, continues.

February is almost over. The cool weather is almost gone. The azaleas and bougainvilleas are blooming. Bad and Good.

Checking in.

Work's going well -- third week of a sprint per week schedule with micro-milestones is working well. Small bites and lots of opportunity to re-calibrate and head off in new directions.

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. I think I'll eat pancakes tonite.

We're enjoy the Discipleship class. We're doing Matthew (again) this week. Lots of good stuff to talk about and learn. I wish A would talk more about what he's thinking.

My best mate, R, has had a bad breakup. My heart aches for him and for the betrayal he feels. Send good thoughts his way.

S called me up last Friday morning and announced that he and T are expecting a baby boy in July. I'll be a grampa for the 5th time. I'm excited for them and hope all goes well. I'm hoping they'll come and visit.

The winter here has been lovely and continues to be lovely. That will end sometime in March, I'm guessing. But it's been nice.

Moving into the season of Lent, I am...

I organized a night at the Opera to see HGO's production of "Chorus!" after I read a good review in the Houston Press. So we went Friday night and really enjoyed it. We were up in the near nose-bleed section since I bought "cheap" seats (relative term, that, @ $75/each).

Since I'd stayed up til 2 in the morning that morning doing work after facilitating the Discipleship class on Thursday night, I was kind of wiped out. But I managed to stay awake through the production and we had a nice evening.

I had a nice lie-in Saturday and A served me breakfast in bed. I did very little during the afternoon. A told me I needed to be ready and dressed by 17.45 for something he was secretive about. So I got showered, shaved and dressed in cords and a nice dress shirt. edensong and his partner showed up at our front door around 10 minutes til 6. We drove into Montrose and I discovered that our destination was a very nice italian restaurant there, Michaelangelos. We enjoyed a wonderfully prepared 4 course dinner and a bottle of Tommasi Merlot. It was all romantical and such with live music and convivial conversation. The wine gave me a pleasant buzz. Afterwards we went to the Meteor for drinks and more conversation. They had a piano bar set up with some cheesy treatments of Elton John, Journey and Van Morrison tunes. But it was relaxing, not crowded and fun. Then we went home, bid our goodbyes and A and I had the rest of the evening to ourselves to be romantical as J is in Vegas for the weekend. It was nice to have the house to ourselves.

Today, we made the 08.30 church service, came home for a breakfast of SBD pancakes, turkey sausage and peppered bacon. A got all manly and used power tools to cut some boards to double the storage in the pantry. We watched the 2008 version of the film, "The Women" and we're grilling burgers for supper since it's a splendiferous spring day in Houston today. It's a shame for the weekend to come to an end but it's been delightful.

I've read Richard Florida's "The Rise of the Creative Class." In this Atlantic Monthly article, he describes the impacts he expects the current market/financial crash to have on various cities and regions in the US. Excellent reading from Richard, as always.

Look for people picking their nose. What the hell is that thing on 41's head? And more ...

A Gigapan of the Inauguration.

It's time to take a trip to the UK. I wish it had been at this level last August when I went to Greenbelt.


Source

Support for the LGBT Community - (from the White House website)

"While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It's about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect."

-- Barack Obama, June 1, 2007

• Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made up more than 15 percent of such crimes. President Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. As a state senator, President Obama passed tough legislation that made hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.
• Fight Workplace Discrimination: President Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees' domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. The President also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
• Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.
• Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: President Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.
• Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell: President Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.
• Expand Adoption Rights: President Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.
• Promote AIDS Prevention: In the first year of his presidency, President Obama will develop and begin to implement a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategy that includes all federal agencies. The strategy will be designed to reduce HIV infections, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health disparities. The President will support common sense approaches including age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception, combating infection within our prison population through education and contraception, and distributing contraceptives through our public health system. The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. President Obama has also been willing to confront the stigma -- too often tied to homophobia -- that continues to surround HIV/AIDS.
• Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS: In the United States, the percentage of women diagnosed with AIDS has quadrupled over the last 20 years. Today, women account for more than one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. President Obama introduced the Microbicide Development Act, which will accelerate the development of products that empower women in the battle against AIDS. Microbicides are a class of products currently under development that women apply topically to prevent transmission of HIV and other infections.