Thanksgiving

Well, I'm back from Nashville.

It turned out to be a great experience. I have very little extended family, and the trip made me (and the rest of my immediate family) realize how much more we should be visiting the family we have. I could see us going back there every other year or so to visit.

Speaking of family, one of the best parts of the trip (for me), was going through the old photographs that my uncle has and hearing various bits of family lore. I came back with a stack of photographs which I'm going to scan. I did the first one tonight:


I have no idea who the guy on the left is. But that's my great-grandfather on the right. Born 1883. Died 1965. I would guess that the picture (a 2.5"x3.5" tintype) was taken sometime around 1900.

Off to the airport

My parents live ten minutes away, so most years I stay in the area for Thanksgiving. This year, however, we're all visiting relatives in Nashville.

I leave for the airport in three hours.

This will be the first time in twelve years that I'm traveling on the day before Thanksgiving, so I'm not sure what to expect. I'm giving myself lots of extra time, just in case. Fortunately my flight is at 12:45pm, so it's easy to arrive early.

The one bright spot of traveling today is that, while there is no direct flight from San Jose to Nashville, there is one from Los Angeles, where my sister lives. So I'm flying from San Jose to LAX, and from there I'll meet up with my sister and we'll fly together to Nashville.

Have a good Thanksgiving everyone (unless you're not American, in which case, have a happy Thursday). I'll see you on Sunday.

Regrets

"It's really cool. The only problem is that it's hard to find anything on it."

- Adam Katz, from a presentation on the World Wide Web he gave for a class on multimedia we both were taking in graduate school, April, 1994.

Jared Christopher over at Completely Naked has a post on regrets and what he'd do differently.

What do I regret?

I regret not working at an Internet startup in the '90s.

On the other hand, all through the dot-com bust I was employed. I dream that, with a few different choices, I could have been employee #10 at Yahoo. But in reality I could have easily ended up at Webvan. Or Pets.com. Still, I wonder what would have happened if I'd said "what if..." to myself during Adam's talk.

I regret not having lived in San Francisco when I was in my 20s.

On the other hand, had I lived in SF, I probably would not own my own home now (or, if I did, it would be a lot smaller, or I'd have a much bigger mortgage).

For a long time I regretted not coming out earlier than I did (23).

Now, I don't think it would have made any difference.

For a long time, I had a lot of regrets. Now, for most of them, I've come to one of two conclusions. For the first batch, I think I honestly did the best I could, and I've forgiven myself for not doing better. For the rest I've decided that, like coming out, it wouldn't have made any difference had I don't things differently, or things could have turned out much worse.

So I find myself not regretting a lot right now.

But I can also see that if I'm going to maintain this state, there are a few things that I need to address.

Soon.

But then, isn't that always the case?

Wisconsin? How did you know?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

(h/t Darin)

Bay Area Fact of the Day

The species of bacteria that gives sourdough bread its characteristic taste is called Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis.

Arianna Huffington

I've never had much use for Arianna Huffington. For those of you who don't know, she was the wife of Michael Huffington, who tried to carpetbag his way into the U.S. Senate by running against Dianne Feinstein in 1994. Once his political career was over, they split. Michael retired from politics and came out, and is apparently much happier. Arianna lept into political punditry and made a sudden switch from right-wing Republican to Democrat.

She's always struck me as a shameless opportunist.

So, it is with great pleasure that I present Arianna as you've never seen her before:

Long Shot

Well, it turns out submitting The Offsite to Magic Theatre was indeed a real long shot. I got their rejection letter a couple of days ago.

My response? I sent them a copy of Swimming the River.

I should hear back by May.

Guide to Borat

Salon has posted a guide to Borat. If you've seen the movie and would like to find out what was staged and what was real, check it out.

On a related note, the frat boys that appeared in the movie have sued 20th Century Fox, claiming they were deceived.

Ahhhh.....

It's pretty rare that an election goes pretty much like I would hope. But this is one of those elections.

And it's not just the results in the House (or the Senate). Arizona defeated its gay marriage ban. South Dakota defeated its abortion ban. And Missouri has voted in support of stem cell research.

Here in California, Arnold won. While I didn't vote for him, I can live with him (once he stopped thinking of running for President, he stopped being a crazy Republican and returned to being a sane, moderate Republican). Crazy Republican Tom McClintock has lost his race for Lt. Governor, which is the one I care about.

Most of the ballot measures I cared about came out like I wanted. The bonds to pay for maintenance and upgrades on the state's infrastructure all passed. The one to restrict eminent domain and zoning failed.

I haven't felt this good about an election since 1992. I just pray that I won't have to wait until 2020 to feel this good again.

I think...

...I'm going to fly my flag today.



I usually fly it on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Veterans Day, but I think, this year, I will fly it today as well.

To all of my American readers: get out and vote!

Borat

I saw Borat tonight. Wow. I thought I was ready for it, but nothing could have prepared me for the naked wrestling scene. It was strange being horrified but also laughing so hard I could barely breathe.

That was also the point in the movie when the family in front me (Mom, Dad and 13 year-old daughter(!)) decided to leave.

Violent Halloween in the Castro

Two in custody after 10 people are shot at Castro Halloween bash

Yikes. I hope all the City folk who read this blog are okay.