Um, Hi!

So I got a little busy…

Let’s see – Andréa came to visit, so did my Mom. I’ve been working a ton and taking on lots of new responsibilities – with great responsibility comes longer hours and more tiredness.

Also there was Frameline – Allyson, Christina and Amy were here from Toronto. We saw some movies, I met some new people including some of the staff of Frameline who are super nice. Attended some interesting Q&A; periods, went to a filmmaker’s brunch, spent many hours in Dolores park.

I’ve been swimming a lot, running a little, biking around. My mom was here and we biked across the Golden Gate bridge which you may notice in the pictures is a little fogged out. It was an exhilarating ride because there was a combination of elite cyclists trying to cross quickly and shouting at people to move over alongside tourist with rented tandem bikes who weaved around and almost crashed many times in front of me.

Since it’s been a while, I can really only remember this past weekend. I was supposed to go to LA for Outfest. I had a plane ticket and a place to stay arranged. It was making me anxious though – and I kept wanting to cancel. In the end I did cancel, and stayed here to go to Joey’s goodbye party at the Lexington where I stayed way past closing and had tamales from the Tamale Lady SF, and chatted with one of the bartenders for several hours. One of those nights where you just aren’t tired…oh and maybe you’ve had a few whiskeys.

Then on Saturday I went out to Oakland in the daytime so I really got to see it for the first time. It was so pretty and felt much more neighbourhoody than anything I’ve been in so far. Stormy was having a birthday bbq in a back yard with lots of great folks and I made a few new friends, visited with old ones and played with the pictured baby english bulldog named Tug. I NEED one of those!

Sunday I woke up early and went with Naomi and Sam to Green Gulch which is a Zen Buddhist center. We did a “sit” for about 40 mins, then had a break and then listened to a speaker – this was followed by an exceptionally tasty lunch. There’s so much that was great about the experience that I don’t even know what to highlight. Sitting was interesting. I haven’t done anything like this since I was pretty young. I’m not that keen on organized religions, but this was very relaxing and since there’s no overt god-ness about it, I didn’t really have trouble with it.

The speaker was pretty funny and made lots of wise comments that still ring with me. I’m curious to learn more about Buddhism – I always knew that I liked the ideas behind it but it’s much more tangible here since more people in close proximity to me are practicing. There’s even a group called Dharma Punx that meets here and I’ve downloaded some of their podcasts to check out.

What’s amazing about being in California, working, is that I have way more spare time that when I am in school and working. The school part makes sure that you never really feel like you’re done. There’s always something to be working on. So all this free time is really giving me opportunities to do so much more, and to experiment with new pastimes. I’ve been hiking and being outdoors more. Biking around SF is easy and practical with the price of gas around here. And now I’m checking out meditation. I’d say that California is agreeing with me.

At work things are great too. The stuff I’m working on is in the spotlight a little bit right now and so that’s keeping a fire under me. The summit in Whistler is coming up and I’m going to be meeting people from the community all over the world to talk about the future of the organization. Also, it’s a possibility that I could keep working on my team as a part-timer throughout the school year. My fingers are crossed that this happens because it would be a perfect scenario. Not only to keep working on a project that I’m enthusiastic about, but also it would be the best fit with my hectic school schedule. This fall I’ll have 6 courses again and it looks like 3 out of 4 days will be 9 am – 5pm up at York. Having work that I can do in the gaps between classes will be key.

Okay – that’s my big update. I must say that now I have crossed the halfway point. It’s closer to the time I will be going home, and that is feeling good to me. I’ve started to miss home, miss my people, my home, family. Hope everyone there is having a good summer.

Well, I missed last weekend’s update because I was out having a lot of fun with a little boxer dog named Ruby. You’ll see her in the slide show. Please do not tell my dog that I was out hiking with another dog – we didn’t really chat about opening up our relationship while I am away.

This week I got to take in some of the National Queer Arts Festival going to the Hogwart’s Express Harry Potter Musical, Kirk Read‘s “This is the Thing” and next week I’ll be at the Deep Lez Potluck and Performance Night and Home-Made Super Hero. Also starting next week is Frameline – whoo-hoo! I’m going to get huge doses of gay and art…two things I love.

After the broken bike fiasco of two weeks ago, my friend Armen located a better bike and this morning we went on a 23 mile trip, this time bringing along Dan who was riding a cruiser bike rented from Stanford. I was a bit ambitious in choosing this ride and I hope they will forgive me and come on a ride again next Saturday. The coaster bike was awfully hard for Dan to ride, and it turns out that 20 miles is about 32 km…I had been thinking in kms when I estimated it would take us an hour and a half to ride it. It took 2 hours and 20 minutes. Oops.

At one point in the ride Armen pointed out some fruit-bearing tree and exclaimed how fruit were “like apricot” but better. So later in the ride, when there was another of these trees right in front of me, I stopped at it, intending to see if Armen wanted to pick some. Unfortunately, the two guys behind me did not notice that I had come to a complete stop. Dan swerved by me, Armen crashed into me. I now have a permanent slo-mo visual memory of Armen coming straight for me at full speed and me crying out “Oh my god – Armen!” CRASH!

Thus, the bleeding elbow you will see in the slideshow. I also have some bruises and a scrapped up knee. It’s my own fault so don’t cry for me. I must learn the hard way to use my hand signals for more than just turning.

Interesting things happening at work – Firefox 3 is coming out on Tuesday (you can play with the sneak peek, it’s basically the same thing). I encourage everyone who can to download it and try it out, especially since by downloading it on Tuesday you will be part of setting a Guinness record for the most downloads of a software package in a 24 hour period. Firefox 3 is really amazing, and instead of trying to explain it to you – I can point you to this: “A Field Guide to Firefox 3” by Deb Richardson which is the ultimate guide as far as I am concerned. I look forward to hearing what you think of it.

On Tuesday there will be parties all over the world in celebration of Firefox 3. Here in Mountain View we will have a BBQ with a rock climbing wall, Wii tournament, music, movies, and lots of other festivities. I’m personally looking forward to trying the rock wall cause I’d like to see if I can do it. There will be plenty of documentation from that event, I assure you.

Well, here’s some of the best pics from the last couple of weeks. Some of them are from the Fremont Older Preserve where I took the boxer dog Ruby on a 9 mile hike last Saturday. It was a significant hike for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it but it has also prompted me to invest in real hiking boots since my running shoes are not actually that comfortable for hiking. Anyway, at the Fremont Preserve, there was a reservoir along the way where tons of people sat out in the sun fishing. I was amused by this as there was also a sign on the path shouting loudly to “NOT EAT THE FISH”. Some people’s idea of a fun way to spend a Sunday is very different than mine.

A quick (< 4 minutes) overview of some of the new features in the soon-to-be-released Firefox 3. Check it out, then head over to http://www.spreadfirefox.com/worldrecord/ and sign up to be notified when the new version comes out! read more | digg story