Barbeque Heaven

Spent part of my annual bonus on a Weber Genesis Gold gas grill. Used it twice this weekend and am convinced it is going to be one of the best investments I've ever made. Fabulous! Got it delivered from the local garden center assembled and for free. And with a free deluxe cover worth €160 because they matched an offer I found on internet. Cannot wait to try a prime rib! It feels really nice to be continuing my family's lifelong tradition of using the gas grill year round as an extension of the kitchen, as it's not as much of a tradition in the Netherlands.

Random Thoughts from London via BlackBerry...

Currently in London at a conference. Boring, poorly attended, crap hotel rooms (is there any such thing as a decent affordable hotel room in London?), nasty food. Cancelled dinner appointment tonight and too much work to do. Great shopping though, especially electronics. But I'm so far ahead of the technology curve I really don't want anything right now! Scary, eh? In London TWICE in two weeks and only bought tea and honey from Harrod's. Sigh...

Long Feng Shi To - Dragon & Phoenix Stone. One of the most beautiful treasures I discovered traveling last year in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. I've since brought home several dozen pieces to decorate our house and give as gifts. It's a beautiful combination of natural beauty and human craftmanship. The only other place I've ever seen anything like this is at one little Yunnan import stand at the Pan Jia Yuan market in Beijing. 

With old friends in Las Vegas

Karen and I at dinner outside of Las Vegas, where I attended the National Association of Broadcasters trade show for my company. Karen and I spent six weeks together over several years time studying the mysteries of life with Pathways Institute (www.pathwaysinstitute.com), which regretably will close its doors this year.

Dinner with some old friends from Pathways last week in Las Vegas. John, Virginia, Michael, me (new shirt!), and Karen. 

The gorgeous Saint Basil's cathedral off of Red Square in the Kremlin. 

Red Square in Moscow 

Pictures from chilly Moscow a few months ago. 

Lifetime Travelog

I've been blessed through my current job with the opportunity to see a lot of the world. But I am far from finished! Below is a running list of the countries and cities I have visited so far in my lifetime (mostly in the last three years, if you can believe it!).

Australia	Sydney*
Austria	Salzburg, Vienna, Melk, Halstatt
Belgium	Brussels*
Bulgaria	Sofia
Canada	Winnipeg, Atikokan**, Toronto, London
China	Beijing**, Shanghai, Kunming, Urumqi
Denmark	Copenhagen, Horsens, Billund
England	London**, Colchester
France	Paris*, Marseilles, Bayonne, Biarritz, St. Jean de Luz, St. Jean de Pied de Port, Hendaye
Germany	Cologne*, Düsseldorf, Idar-Oberstein
Greece	Athens*, Hydra
Hungary	Budapest
Ireland	Dublin
Italy	Rome, Milan*, Baveno (Lago Maggiore), Turin
Japan	Sapporo*, Jozankei, Otaru
Korea	Seoul
Mexico	Tiajuana, Merida*, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Progreso
Netherlands	Amsterdam***, Hoofddorp***, Purmerend***, Hoorn***, Hilversum**
Poland	Zielona Gora
Portugal	Faro (Algarve)
Russian Federation	Moscow
South Africa	Johannesburg*, Sun City, Hermanus
Spain	Madrid*, Segovia, Avila, Toledo, Barcelona, Figueras, Marbella, San Sebastian***, Bilbao, Vitoria, Lazcano**, Irun, Hondarribia** (and dozens of other smaller Basque towns and villages in my one year of living there)
United States	Arizona**, California**, Colorado*, Conneticut, Washington D.C.**, Florida*, Georgia*, Hawaii*, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa***, Maryland*, Massachusetts*, Michigan, Minnesota**, Missouri**, Nebraska, Nevada**, New Jersey, New York*, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia***, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin

Lived, worked, holidayed or studied for cumulatively:
* = One week or more **=One month or more ***=One year or more

Donostia-San Sebastián

Journied last weekend to Donostia-San Sebastián in the Basque Country of Spain. I went to school there for 8 months in 1990-91, and have had the pleasure of returning half a dozen times since then. Recently it has become a yearly affair. This year it will probably be about three times, because I'm planning a company event there! Last week I went with a colleague to prepare the way, investigating the hotel facilities and the dining and excursion sites we'll take our customers to. It was a blast. The hotel is fabulous. I never even dared to walk into it when I was a student, so it always gives me a satisfied feeling to stay there. So imagine how I feel about renting the whole bloody thing out for a week! :-)

John Paul II - "Gay Marriage Evil"

In case you wonder why it is that I can't get all too excited about the pope's death, see this clip from a recently published magazine...

The man obviously did a lot of good in the world to incite as much love as the world is expressing right now. But not being Catholic, poor, Polish, African or South American, there's not much reason for me to respect him considering statements like the one above. For him to say that my relationship with my partner is any less deserving of respect and recognition by the government or the church (which I realize are two different questions entirely) is patently rediculous. Where is the respect for life here? Where is compassion for others? Where is "The greatest of these [commandments] is love"? Instead he's declaring war on me and my kind by actively using the power of the church to influence government policy making. What ever happened to the separation of church and state (in the U.S. at least)? Welcome to the newly founded Theocratic States of America, in so small measure with help from His Holiness.

So I mourn the passing of the pope as a human being who did some good and some evil in the world. Pretty much like any other human being, I guess. I'll work on trying to show more acceptance and compassion for him than he showed for me. But it's proving hard.

Surreal Showgirl Weekend

Kylie was everything we'd hoped for and more! She put on an amazing show for more than two hours with everything you'd expect from her. The costumes and the stage were magical, and the dancers were attractive and energetic. But for some strange reason the men seemed to be on stage twice as much as the women. Hmmm... wonder why that is. Bumped into a current colleague (there with his girlfriend; she was both cute, smart and charming - we spoke Japanese together!) and an old colleague from about five years ago who I'd not seen since (part of the majority gay contingent at the show!). The audience was mostly gay men and 20/30-something women. The few straight guys there appear to have been dragged their against their will. :-)



Our other major activity during the weekend (besides the breakfast buffet at the Westin and dim sum) was to go to the Dalí exposition as mentioned below. It was far different from what I'd expected. First of all, the space at the Boijmans van Beuningen (BvB) is gorgeous. Not completely unlike the large gallery at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, though I'd venture to guess that the BvB is larger. What was unexpected about the exposition is that it wasn't just a collection of unrelated works. It was a study of Dalí's forets into the popular culture of his time through film, theater, fashion, commercials, photography, etc. Though mostly remembered for his surreal paintings of melting clocks and the like, he also collaborated with greats like Walt Disney, Luís Buñuel, and Federico García Lorca to create stunning surreal visual fantasies, whether on stage of on celluloid. Very much worth the €12 entrance fee. See http://www.alldali.org/ENG/ENG_index.php for more info.

Miss Minogue on the Maas

Off this weekend with W. to Rotterdam to see Miss Kylie Minogue's new Showgirl concert in the Ahoy! We're both big fans and have been for 15-20 years! We'll be staying in the Westin Hotel (compliments of Starwood to thank me for the 50 nights I spent with them last year). We'll probably go shopping and see the Dalí exhibition at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen as well (they've got over 400 of his works on display, but what is it with international museum names that nobody but the locals can pronounce?). Will be nice to get out of town together for a few relaxing days, as it's been three months since we last did that.

Kylie's personal message especially for us:

"Showgirl is not only a celebration of pop songs and my career, but of a long time relationship with my audience. This is my way to say thank you and to share some of the most important moments of my journey so far, a trip down memory lane. It's been so much fun putting the show together. The set list was the starting point and the biggest challenge was to represent my finest records and also my personal favourites. The show has taken just under a year to design and build, but it has been a lifetime in the making. I hope you enjoy this special evening!"

RuBlog

Another blogster you should all immediately bow down to and worship is the indominable Miss RuPaul. For those of you who might not know him, he's a fabulous African-American drag queen/supermodel/singer who came out of the Atlanta (then New York) gay scene in the 80's and made a name for himself in mainstream culture with the dance hit Supermodel in the early 90's. He has been blogging the truth since November 2001 and has chronicled the ups and downs of his trip of self-discovery following his meteoric fall from power and subsequent journey back into the showbiz scene with his new album, Red Hot (which is COMPLETELY fabulous, hysterically funny and very well-written and must be bought by clicking on the album cover!), and daily New York radio show.

Props to you girl for always keeping it real and
congrats on your Billboard Number 1 Dance Breakout hit, Workout!

Justin's Life - Blog Before Blogs

In the last several years, the word BLOG has raged into global consciousness as if the concept had never existed before. But it did.

Long before the guy in Iraq, there was a young gay southern kid named Justin Clouse (right) who started his blog more than 10 years ago (though he just called it a journal)! Struggling with his life, relationships and college (as we all did), he started keeping an online journal that eventually turned into http://www.justinslife.com/. Though he stopped in order to focus on his life in the real world a few years ago, he was one of the pioneers of blogging. And what he did back then is not at all different from what’s happening today. Simply a normal, everyday guy sharing his thoughts and feelings (and obsession with red heads!) with the world.

Don’t know where he is or what he’s up to these days, but hats off to him for being an early and gutsy blog pioneer!

A collage of significant events/people/places in my life. Doesn't include family and loved ones to protect the innocent. Perhpas I'll do that another time! 

Reality TV, the Human Psyche & Politics

I am so addicted to reality TV that it's not funny anymore.

• Survivor
• American Idol
• Pop Idol (UK)
• The Apprentice (U.K. & U.S)
• Extreme Makeover (with my old college friend Sam!)
• Extreme Makeover Home Edition
• Fame Academy (BBC)
• Etc. etc. etc.

Out of control. If I try to analyze why I like these shows so much, several things come to mind. You tend to get to know the characters - real people and not actors - really well over time and see their struggle to change their lives for the better, which is something I think we all aspire to. In some cases, you get to see people wrestle with very real personal demons, and involved in relationship with others. And of course I think we all get off most on the conflict that's created (the "Simon Cowell Effect"). Why else would anyone have ever watched Jerry Springer?

Has our way of living our lives and expressing ourselves become so "civilized" (read: sterile), that we are all subconsciously longing for some passionate and honest expression? Especially in the American society I come from, I think there's high value placed on the ability to avoid conflict. And I think that's so unnatural that we're starting to see it start to burst out at the seems because of it being too confined. Political discourse is becoming increasingly vitriolic and uncivilized, despite the fact that it's perfectly possible to passionately express one's opinion and disagreement without being mean about it. And worse yet, American's are responding to Islamic fanaticism with their own brand of right-wing Christian nationalist fanaticism. Like that's going to solve anything! But I digress...

With our small little unexciting lives of going to and from work, dropping the kids off at soccer and paying our bills, I think Reality TV has become the new way to live more exciting lives vicariously through others. Perhaps instead we should direct our energy at actually HAVING exciting and adventurous lives instead of having to witness them by proxy on TV.

Terri Schiavo & the Christian Right

Is it just me or does anyone from the Christian Right in the U.S. actually have a job? The amount of effort they're putting into trying to save this poor woman from continuing to live her miserable "existence" is astounding. Granted, the polls show they are only a vocal minority in the U.S. (which apparently hasn't gone completely mad as I'd feared after last November). It would be one thing if she were completely paralyzed and still had higher brain function, but the scans show a complete atrophy of her cerebral tissue (which has been replaced with cerebro-spinal fluid), with only basic autonomic brain functions remaining. Who in their right mind would want to live that way? It's just plain SELFISH on the part of her parents to want to keep her alive in order to feed their deluded sense of hope. I hope both she and her parents can find peace soon.

What astounds me even more is the U.S. and Florida governments thinking they have the right to fiddle with in the private and excruciatingly difficult decisions made between a husband and wife! That's not exactly what I call the Republican ideal of "small government".

I'm especially vexed by the amount of effort they (government = Christian Right) put into saving the life of someone who's already half-dead in the name of "the sanctity of life" when they put an equal amount of energy into making the life of gays and lesbians a living hell. Their war cry is "God decides when we're born, and He decides when we die!". George Bush apparently has an exemption from this rule, as he sends thousands of soldiers off to an untimely demise and condemns hundreds of thousands of civilians to needless deaths.

Instead of focusing their energy on the half-dead and the unborn, why don't these idiots open their eyes and see the real suffering of the living, breathing human beings around them (much of which they are directly responsible for!).

First Entry

I'm reading a book called The Little, Brown Handbook by Fowler & Aaron, a book about not only writing rules but the writing process. As my new job entails a fair amount of writing, and I'm one of the few native English speakers in my department, I feel the obligation to become not only the resident expert but also a teacher to my other colleagues (which I love doing anyway). I've just begun reading, and the first exercise in the book suggests keeping a journal about the writing experience. It made me realize that I don't actually practice writing enough outside of the stuff I do at work, which I inevitably have to produce under a tight deadline and never have the time to actually think about. Reading about the writing process made me realize that I needed some practice, and it occurred to me that a blog would be a good place to practice; to do different types of writing without being under the pressure of a deadline and other constraints on subject, tone, length, etc. So here I am writing my first post.

Another reason to be doing this is purely therapeutic. My life is complex, especially my relationships, and I think this would be a good way to blow of some steam now and again and help me sort out my thoughts. And if I can help/entertain someone else in the meantime, then even better.

Cheeky Christo