Guess Who's Coming to Town

As you may know, there is a gubernatorial election going on here in the Commonwealth. It is pretty heated on both sides. Since I go into the politics of it a lot elsewhere I won't do that here. I will say this though: though Democratic nominee, Terry McAuliffe is bringing in some heavy hitters. On of them is coming to my little town this coming Monday.

Yup, Bubba is headed this way. Tickets to the event were free, but I still had to wait in line. It is a somewhat different situation because admittance wasn't guaranteed, it pretty much first come first served. I don't know, but in order to have a chance of admittance, you needed a ticket, which is what I was in line for on Wednesday morning. I got these about 30 minutes (9:30ish) before doors opened and there was of course a line. This IS Bill Clinton after all. Not only was there a line, but there was a lot of cold. At one point, it started sleeting rather heavily, and it was pretty windy. I said to the people around me "At least we're doing this for Bill Clinton and not Justin Beiber." No one disagreed with that. Well, I got my ticket finally around 11 or so, most of the waiting time was spent outside and stupid me left my gloves at home.

~

Meanwhile, tonight (Thursday...in less than an hour as of the time I'm writing this) is the last gubernatorial debate between the Democratic and Republican candidates (there is a Libertarian candidate who is actually polling at around 10%, but he didn't get invited...for whatever reason). The venue is right here in town. In fact, I was near the venue about an hour ago and I spotted Al Madrigal, a correspondent from Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," you know, the one hosted by Jon Stewart. I would have at least attempted getting a picture of him (though not with him, I guess i get a bit more star-struck than I thought), but my camera decided to die. Bastard! Given the shooting and airing schedule of TDS, the soonest whatever they are shooting tonight would end up on the show would be Monday night. I'm looking forward to it.

Unfortunately, I didn't get tickets to the debate. Tickets were open to the public Tuesday morning, but they went fast. By fast, I mean five minutes...or so I heard. Looks like I'll be watching it at home like everyone else...in like 30 minutes.

I'll make sure my camera battery is charged before the Clinton appearance. Oh man, if I ended up with a picture with him, that would be the highlight of my year.

Run Rob, Run!!!

I better sleep deep tonight. 

It has been a rather exhausting and active day, more so than any day in the recent past. I have been awake since seven this morning. Over an hour later, I went for a three-mile run and actually remembered to stretch afterwards for once (I always remember to beforehand). Was pretty tired afterwards but felt okay. I usually recover quickly.

I had planned on doing something else later: riding my bike to my polling station to vote in the Virginia primary which was being held today (at least for the Democrats, the Republicans stupidly had a convention last month and came up with some very extreme candidates). However, the new state ID that I was supposed to have a few weeks ago hasn't gotten here yet and the one I have now is expired. Thanks a lot DMV. So I was thinking that I didn't have the proper stuff to go vote. Thinking this, I decided to instead go on another run, just 1.5 miles this time just after three in the afternoon. However, I ran it harder than I usually do. Instead of going on an endurance run, I went on a speed run. Before I went on run #2, I posted on my Facebook page about my voting ID issue. When a got back from the run - which didn't go nearly as bad as I thought it might - a friend got back to my Facebook post about some alternate ID options and another friend joined in. They gave me some things I may be able to use, which led me to thrash about my place looking for something to use. I ended up finding my newest voter registration card from last year which I did after moving. Side note, apparently I had my old registration card on me when I voted last November, so it's a good thing I didn't need it then. Anyway, I threw that in my wallet, hopped on my bike, and went to my precinct. The trouble was that I still only have an expired state ID. Luckily, they poll workers didn't look at that. The address on it however was not where I live now, which is where the new voter registration card came into play. It all ended up working out and I got to vote, which made my day so much better. Then I made the trek back home.

So, I ended up running three mile, then another 1.5 miles, then biking another 1.5-2 miles less than an hour after that. Hopefully, I'll be able to use my legs tomorrow.

Weekend Excursion

I was in Richmond, Virginia this past weekend. This was the first time I had been in the city since grade twelve which was…a long time ago. Despite the previous trips, this was the first time I got a good look at much of the city. I hate say it, but I was pretty disappointed. I knew beforehand that like virtually any major city, it has its good parts and its bad parts. It really seemed like much of the city had fallen into ruin. Being the geek that I am, it reminded me of the story of Oscillate (yes people, I am taking you into Middle Earth yet again). It was a grand city in its day but over the years, it was abandoned and eventually became a crumbling ruin. Richmond is not that bad, nor is it anything like Osgiliath in the films, but the city needs help.

Having given the uninitiated a very grim visual image of the city, let me say that it was not all bad. I had a

couple of hours to kill before getting ready for the event that brought me to Richmond so a friend I was with took me to one of the gems of the city, the Jefferson Hotel. This place was immaculate and I felt very under dressed while I was there. They also had a killer Whiskey Sour. It was the fanciest building I had visited in quite some time. On our way to the Jefferson Hotel, we passed by a courthouse which had that classic Greco-Roman architecture with columns that reached into the sky. I love that sort of thing.

Despite being somewhat disappointed with the city itself, it was a very fun weekend. I was there for an event with Equality Virginia, the largest LGBT civil rights organization in the commonwealth. I got to meet some people who are currently running for statewide office like Aneesh Chopra and Terry MacAuliffe, I got to meet Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) who as an awesome guy, Cory Booker (the mayor of Newark, New Jersey). It was a three-hour drive there fairly early on Saturday morning but it was a very fun car ride. The four of us who were in the car talked pretty much the entire time, which surprised me because I had gotten up at 6 am and was not running on much sleep.

I had not been a road trip in a long time and I forgot how fun they can be.

A Change of Plans...

I mentioned some time ago that is was going to be at a concert in early April featuring one of my favourite bands, Carbon Leaf (among other acts there). That was the plan...at the time. Something came up. On the very day that this concert is happening, there is something going on elsewhere which will be a huge opportunity for me in terms of networking and such. At first, I thought that I would miss this other event in order to go to the concert. Then I realized that, due to other circumstances, it was far more important for me in the long run to go to this other event. I have some occupational issues that will be arising in the very near future so priorities need to be shifted, big time. Some times, being an adult sucks a lot.

So instead of going to the concert, I will be attending an event held by Equality Virginia, which is an organization fighting for LGBT equality here in the Commonwealth. The very charismatic Cory Booker (mayor of Newark, New Jersey and candidate for Senate in 2014, pictured) will be the keynote speaker. He gave a stellar speech at the Democratic National Convention last year (which you can see below). I went from being pretty mad at having to miss the concert to actually being pretty excited about this event. There are some ducks that I want to get in a row before the event. Hopefully I can get together some sort of writing portfolio beforehand (some stuff I have already written needs to be edited, some stuff that I have started writing needs to be completed). I may try to have something published in The Advocate, but we'll see how this goes.

I love Carbon Leaf, but I need to move forward with my life professionally. Into the future...

VOTE!!!

A Conservatives' Guide to Staying in the Closet

A Banner Two Months

As you may or may not know, I have another blog, which is where most of my blogging time goes (you can find that blog HERE). I started a it a month or two after starting this one. It's very different from this one in that it isn't a personal blog, it's a political one. Most of what I talk about there is LGBT issues, as well as more generally political stuff (elections, the economy, and various other things). That one gets most of my attention because what I hope to do is parlay that into a career in politics, not necessarily a career in political blogging, but maybe something of a resume builder for some other job in the not-too-distant future.

I've been steadily chugging along with that blog, but the last two months have been really (and somewhat surprisingly) great. I went fro averaging around 1,000 page views to getting about 1,600 in December and over 2,500 in January. The work that I put into it - hours of combing through articles and media sites, tons of writing, and advertising through my personal Facebook and Twitter accounts - seems to be paying off somewhat.

I got an additional boost in page views today. I site that I visit on a regular basis, AfterElton.com, usually has a daily meme come out in the morning. Since the person behind it is on holiday this week, today's meme is more of a crowd-sourced deal where readers find stories to share with fellow readers. I took this opportunity to put up a couple of stories from my other blog and I have had a lot of people take a look. Hopefully I can translate that into longer-term viewership.

One thing I would like to see is more comments on that blog (and this one, hint hint ;). Feedback, so long as it is constructive, is a good thing. I would like to see what people who read these blogs have to say about the issues that are brought up. If I'm wrong (or right) about something, I'd like to know either way. So that's one of my goals: to get some more followers, comments, and viewers. Another mission for this month is to start a Facebook page for my other blog in service of those other goals. I should have done that ages ago, but it just hasn't happened yet. I think some increased exposure would be a good thing, especially when tackling issues where people may think that they're alone (i.e. bullying and such).

Other than that, I'm at a bit of a loose end in term of original content. This week I did a fair amount of writing, more so than I have done since I graduated university actually. I'm a little out of ideas, not to mention mentally drained. Usually writing opportunities just present themselves, which is what happened with a lot of this week's topics (i.e. reviewing January's advances in marriage equality).

That's pretty much all that was on my mind. If you made it to the end of this post, here is your reward: EYE CANDY!!!

Denver Broncos Wide Receiver Eric Decker

Goals (Addendum)

I forgot to mention something fairly major that I want to do this year: more reading of political/history books. Almost all of this 2011's reading was fiction (2.5 volumes from "A Song of Ice & Fire," as well as "The Hobbit" and "The Return of the King," etc.). I did manage to read "The Art of War" and part of "The Republic" which I'm happy about, but those were the only real world type books that I read this year. I don't have any specific books, but generally, this is what I have in mind:

President Theodore Roosevelt

-the Teddy Roosevelt administration (he was known as a trust-buster, which is what I wish we had right now)

-books about the nation's founding

-books about the Constitution

-something written by Doris Kearns Goodwin, a presidential historian (specifically "A Team of Rivals" which is about Lincoln...a film is supposedly being made from it also)

I need to give this a bit more thought before heading to a bookstore. Yes I know this makes me a huge dork, but that's a badge of honour as far as I'm concerned. Also, remember that I majored in political science so this stuff is my bread and butter. Also, since some of the goals I mentioned involved starting my career and working in politics, it certainly helps to have as much knowledge of this stuff as possible, especially in an election year. I used to know a lot more than I do now. Time to get some of those smarts back.

I hope what ever goals you have this year, you accomplish them as well.

Election Day

IT'S ELECTION DAY!!! GET OUT AND VOTE!!!

A Friendly Reminder

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is Election Day so make sure to get out and vote. We saw what happened last year when progressives sat the election out and it would be disastrous to make that mistake again. We have to actually show up to affect change in this world and this country.

Don't Ask Don't Tell is Officially Dead

Former Air Force Lt Col Victor Fehrenbach

POST 100: The F Saga Begins

I was about to let this event go on unceremoniously, but then I remembered something that happened about two weeks ago. I think it's post 100 worthy. I will say that for reasons that will become apparent, there are certain details that I can't disclose for the sake of others.

I had been out one night doing a little drinking (not too much I swear). That night, I ended up talking to someone for a pretty long time. It started out about random stuff. Then it moved onto politics (I ended up explaining the power structure of Congress, putting that degree I have to at least a little bit of use). That led to me mentioning I'm gay (we had gotten to why I vote the way I do by this time). I was pretty sober by this time so it wasn't some drunken revelation, I was just feeling particularly open at this time. 

There is also the fact that the two of us had kinda hooked up the weekend after Halloween (emphasis on kinda). That particular night, I was drunk, he was blitzed (I was thinking at the time he might be blacked out). That night wasn't mentioned again...until, that is, the night of this story. 

He ended up asking me if we hooked up that night, and I said yes and proceeded to tell him that story. He told me that he wasn't sure it had actually happened, he had thought it was a dream or something like that (a testament to how drunk he had been those months ago). After having answered a number of quite personal questions myself, I decided it was my turn to ask one. I asked him, point blank, "Are you gay?" Somehow I have never actually asked that of someone, don't know how I managed that. He said yes, with a lot of guilt in his answer. That is most likely because he is in a long-term relationship...with a girl. They have been together for at least a year.

Most of the rest of the conversation was me trying to give him some advice and words of wisdom, such that I have. I did not so much tell him specifically what to do, but I tried to give him at least a little courage, insight, and knowledge as to the consequences of various. He doesn't know how to tell his girlfriend, nor would I in his situation. There is no easy way for him to tell her the truth without her being hurt. I did say that the longer he waits to tell her, the more damaging it would be to them both. I actually led him to a particular blog which is by a guy who has been married for some 20 years (to a woman), has three kids with her, but is gay and recently told her (which you can see HERE). I think this particular blog is something that he needed to see and hopefully he read through it because he is walking down a similar road.

It was a very long night. By the time I got to bed, the night had worn away and dawn was closing in.

This all happened about two weeks ago, I haven't seen him or talked to him since then, so I haven't really followed up. I'm pretty sure I'm still the only person who knows about him. I think I'll probably see him this weekend, probably for the last time (he's moving to, I think, Tennessee), so I'll offer myself as a sympathetic ear and a source of strength should he need it...which he will (at least from some other source if not me). Hopefully I helped him come to terms with who he is, or at least set him on the road to doing so so that he can be who he really is and find some true happiness.

Houston...

...we have lift off.

Commonwealth Commentary!!!

Coming Attractions: Commonwealth Commentary

I had thought I would launch it this morning (after a had actually come up with a title), but I decided to delay it until Monday. Until then, I had to show this:

Branching Out

You may not have noticed but there is a lack of political discussion on the blog. That is totally on purpose. I started this blog to talk about random life events and musings on various events. Pretty much, this is an online journal. The thing is though, I'm a political junkie. I think about it on a regular basis. Hell, it was what I studied in university.

As such, some time in the not-too-distant future (the next week if not the next few days), I plan on launching a blog about politics/current events (primarily gay rights, but other things as well). There's just too much going on in my head on the subject to say nothing.

This blog (i.e. Son of the Commonwealth) will go on, so no need to worry.