Posts Tagged: Pondering
Culture Crawl 2010: Why Art?
Yes, it’s that time of year again. On Saturday I went a-crawling, deciding to roam around Strathcona again. There are still many studios I haven’t seen yet, way out past Clark and near the Waterfront, but I enjoyed Strathcona so much! the pretty heritage houses, the rich history, the feel of community similar to what I feel in the queer West End, though with a different flavour, of course.
Progress means…
In the last two years I completed the VGVA.com redesign, to much applause; I began and will soon finish another redesign, which introduced me to an honest-to-gawd CMS (WebGUI, to be precise). And yes, I already knew Wordpress, but I’d only adopted that in the previous year. Recently I’ve begun two more projects, one (volunteer) as part of a team of developers, another as the solo tech guy for a fledgling online commercial venture.
Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010
And a new decade… ish? No, I think that’ll only start in 2011. Still, it’s a rollover. It feels like a new decade. And a pretty interesting year.
What I Used To Write
Talk about a blast from the past. A few months ago my folks found a few binders full of notes and writings from long ago, and asked me to take a look at it before throwing it out. What a find!
2008: The Year In Review
This has been a pretty interesting year, with lots for me to be proud of. Let’s run down some of my achievements, in no particular order:
Enlightenment For Sale
Sunday was quite a full day of volleyball. A reffing clinic around noon, then dropping in to Intermediate 1 (I figured I’d have a good shot, since lots of people would be away for the long weekend), then my usual Intermediate 2 play. There was also a beginner reffing clinic between I1 and I2; I’d already taken it, so it gave me a chance to go grab a bite to eat.
Dungeons & Dragons
I discovered The Order of the Stick about a month ago (with this episode, to be precise), and was immediately hooked. It’s got great plots, character development, action and adventure and tons of humour. Half of that is the hilarious metagaming dialog which spoke to right to my geek heart.
Accidental Community
I’ve just returned from the first meeting of the Accidental Community project. There was a photo slideshow by local artist John Kozachenko, a very brief overview of the history of gay men’s communities in the West End, Q & A and interactive discussion, and a look at future directions for the project.
Good Nets Make Good Neighbours
Watched the semi-finals of the Broadway Tech Centre basketball tournament today. It was a pleasant way to spend a lunch hour, though neither of the teams were from my company, and I didn’t know any of the players. One team showed pretty poor sportsmanship: they were way more aggressive, quicker to cry foul (literally) if the other team got aggressive, and had an annoyingly loud cheering section.
Dancers, Drag Queens and Devout Nerds
Taking a brief break from Web development, with the coding and the styling and the restructuring, to write a quick entry. (A month between entries is not good. At least I’ve got a good excuse this time.)
So anyway, last Saturday I went to Davie Days, a street festival sort of thing where the businesses (queer and otherwise) along Davie Street all have booths displaying their stuff; there were a couple of beer gardens, a guy making balloon hats for the kiddies (of all ages) and a couple of stages for entertainment.
Thirteen And Counting
Every year around this time, it hits me: the nagging urge to write and post something for the anniversary of my coming out. I’m not sure what to write about, exactly: something deep and meaningful where I’d explore issues politics or identity, or just how I’ve changed and grown in the time since coming out.
Grins Are Not Enough
I had a couple of interesting dreams over the holidays. In the first, I was biking home (from work, I think) on Broadway through East Vancouver (which in reality would be out of my way). The sky to the north, over the mountains, was a gorgeous sunset gold, so I decided to take a picture. I turned north and biked a few more blocks looking for the perfect view. The street where I stopped was also the inside of a house (or large building) in the process of being renovated. There was a roof overhead but somehow the mountains were still visible.
Better Than Cursing The Darkness
Winter’s officially already here. Oh, I know the solstice isn’t for another three weeks. Technically, this is still autumn. But autumn’s gorgeous show is long over; the leaves have almost all fallen off the trees, and the remaining ones are dead yellows or browns. When the clouds clear up I can see snow on the North Shore mountains; even at ground level the temperature’s dipped below freezing for the last few nights.
Between Québec And Toronto
I’ve lived in Vancouver for over eight years, having moved here from Ottawa—where I was born and spent all my life—and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. In fact, I believe moving out here was the best thing that happened to me since I came out of the close twelve years ago. I’ve changed a lot in that time and, looking back, I feel very far away from Ottawa, and the me who lived there.
Left, Right, Left, Right
So. 51 days into the redesign, and where am I at?
It’s going pretty well, actually. I’ve converted all of the pages except the photo galleries to the new (provisional) design, and even those should be done very soon. That’s the easy part. Now that I’ve got the styles in place, I’ll be able to shuffle things around much more easily. CSS-based layouts are a godsend, they are. I’ve still got a lot to learn (no duh), but it doesn’t look so intimidating anymore.
My Coming Out Story
It happened in late May of 1992 and became official on May 28th, the day I started my diary to come out to myself on paper; I was seven weeks away from my 21st birthday, having just finished my first undergrad degree. Suddenly, without warning, denial took a permanent holiday and I accepted the simple truth: I was gay. Had been all along.
Atheism: A Brief Manifesto
Though I’ve been an atheist for a number of years, it’s not something I usually think about. It doesn’t come up in conversations much. It doesn’t influence my day-to-day life, my job, my choice of clothes, my choice of friends. There are no churches to go to, no holy books to read, no rituals to perform. In a perfect world my lack of faith in deities wouldn’t be any more of an issue than my lack of faith in space aliens or Santa Claus.
