Category: Uncategorized

A really good day

After getting in to Newark last night (don’t get me started on the stupidity around the cabs, buses and njtransit.com), I made it straight to Dan’s place. Settled in pretty quickly, had a pleasant evening.

Today, Dan had to leave early for a conference which took him most of the day. I slept in, and fooled around online for a bit. In the afternoon, I went to the city, and met up with . We chatted for like an hour and half, while checking around the bus center for the elusive open information desk, and heading to chelsea piers for the open floor gymnastics night.

I had barely set foot outside the lockerroom on the way to the gymnastics room when I saw Bobby Diep, who I knew from the open floor gymnastics I did at UC Berkeley. I did a bit of practicing with my handstands, trying to work my way up to handsprings. David suggested I talk with Randy, one of the coaches. A small group of us assembled. I got to feel like I was top of the class, as we did handspring warmups. And after the handsprings, we moved to the trampoline to practice back tucks with the belt. There I was the bottom of the class. Randy started teasing me that I was fucking up my landings just to give his hands ropeburn. David joined us to practice his double back tucks, and got the same playful ribbing from Randy. Afterwards it was on to back handsprings. Which is probably my favorite thing that I can do, gymnastically speaking.

Dan was going to join us, but sadly, when he finally got to the gym from the conference he realized he only had the (dress) clothes on his back. We didn’t see him, and he turned around to head home. I was meanwhile practicing handsprings after warming up. Half way through I stepped out to call him, and persuaded him to come back and watch.

Afterwards, Bobby, Dan, David, and me went out to dinner. (Neng-li, another former berkeley person walked with us to the subway, then went home). We went to Zen Palate (one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants). Dinner was faboo, and we lingered afterwards. Bobby lived nearby, but David saw us off to our bus. And now I’m back in Jersey. I was a good day. Meeting rocked and it’s been great seeing Dan again. Like so many places, I want to come back… =)

Irks

Shipping irk:

Hello internet companies. I am ordering shit from you. This implies I have income, which suggests I have a job. One might suspect that I don’t want to take a day off to sit at home and wait for the package. One would suspect correctly. And yet your best advice is “ship it to a friend or relative that lives nearby.”? Figure out a real solution to the problem and get back to me.

Language irk:

The phrase “ethnic cleansing” offends me deeply. Partially because it’s bureaucratic weasel language for “genocide”. “Genocide” sounds bad, because it is. There’s nothing wrong with “ethnic”, and some might argue “cleansing” is a good word. Genocide doesn’t deserve pretty language to cover up for it. Let alone pretty language that validates the underlying viewpoint of those who practice it. When someone uses the phrase “ethnic cleansing”, correct them, and tell them to say what they mean.

Conferences

Part of my plan for pursuing my interest in environmental issues while working in healthcare has been to attend relevant conferences. *Finding and identifying* relevant conferences is much harder than it sounds. I was searching for months with little success. But today, googling has brought me a much better solution (note, I think this must be a new site. Google was previously tried).

There are several interesting conferences I’ve culled from http://www.allconferences.com/ A week from tomorrow there’s a conference in DC on policy and science. In late november/early december, there’s a conference on industrial ecology in Lusanne Switzerland. At the end of January, there’s a conference on planning an the environment in Mumbai, India. And starting July 8th, of 2007, there’s a week long meeting on greenhouse gases in Kingston, Ontario.

Then there’s this enormous list of sustainable development themed conferences all over the world: http://www.conferencealerts.com/sustain.htm The day after I’m scheduled to leave NYC, there’s a conference on corporate response to climate change. November 4th, there’s a conference on starting environmental enterprises and organizations, also held in NYC. A year from now, there’s a green building conference in LA (it also happens to be in denver one week after I’m out there for GAO training, this year in november)

Of course there’s the US’s energy policy conference (themed around fossil fuels, how shocking). There’s also a European Renewable Energy Policy conference at the end of january (same time as the Mumbai urban environmental issues conference).

So much to choose from… I will have to budget my financial resources, as well as my time for these. I could easily blow all of one or both going to half the stuff that interests me. And sadly, since I’m on the healthcare team, I can’t put any of these down for GAO time or money.

I’m not even sure where to start on the potential journals I could get. I don’t know how much time I’m willing to spend reading them. And my interests are not well enough formed to know which ones I’d want to get. But this is a definite starting point.

Blinded by the Right

I just finished reading blinded by the right. It’s David Brock’s memoir of his days as a conservative attack journalist, and his subsequent repentence. It was interesting, though offputting in many ways. He was certainly genuine in it, but that didn’t make it a pleasant read. It was definitely thought provoking though.

It got me thinking alot about the blind loyalty to political parties, and the treatment of these loyalties as far more serious than any actual policy considerations. It is very distressing to me how little our politics has to do with policy. Most of America shares my policy values, according to surveys. But their political values are based, by and large, in rooting for the political party they grew up with like its their local sports team.

His portrait of seeking approval through politics, trashing people for profit, and never thinking twice about his actions disturbed me. That he could live his life for nearly two decades working towards ends he found undesirable chilled me. He is a conflict hungry drama queen, and in that way I think he’d irritate me. He’s a gay man who has experienced profound guilt and a complete loss of his world framework related to that guilt, with his sexuality tied in for good measure. That I can relate to, but it’s not the best part of either of us.

Ultimately, his soaring and hugely lucrative career is brought to a close as much by his conscience as anything. And he tells of his apologies, his process of ending his former ways, and then trying to mend his former ways. He talks about the mutual use society of the mainstream of the regressive movement, which accepts loyal gays, while talking trash about all gays.

He talked about being out in his Berkeley undergrad days, and progressing thoroughly into the back of the closet thereafter. Oddly, I can relate to this.

<total aside>When I first came out, I overdid it. And I retreated somewhat from introducing myself with my sexuality. At work I’ve been in the closet, totally out (non-issue), comfortable talking about it in whispers, and, oddly, in my current position, feeling a little like I went back in to the closet. As you may recall, last summer, I invited the entire office to join me at “the Chicago pride parade.” I kinda thought the “gay” was implied, but based on some of the responses it wasn’t immediately clear to many people. And yet, when the highest up in the office made some comment about me getting married some day, I made some sort of too-clever deflection saying it wasn’t likely soon. She didn’t get it right away, but with a couple giggles around the table she had a little epiphany. It felt a little ridiculous, like I’m back in the land of wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Bleh! I talk openly with the (few) fellow homos in the office. Of course, part of what my performance is evaluated on is my ability to work well with others. And I fear trumpeting my sexuality (or even just speaking openly about it sometimes) will make others uncomfortable with me. Tada, I’m back in the closet, sort of. And the thing is, I don’t really like pride parades. Or gay bars. Maybe it’s the hedonism, maybe it’s the vapidity. Maybe it’s the pretense that we are all one, when we have less in common with one another than the minorities gay rights advocacy groups.

But even more so, I detest the hypocrisy or self-loathing of the “straight acters” and closet cases. </total aside>