Friday, April 28, 2006

Solution

I read a very clear editorial in today's Salem Gazette (a free weekly that is part of the Boston Herald's group of papers) that surprised me - given the parent company's uber-conservative views.

The basic premise was this: government has no real business being in the marriage business. Marriage was historically something provided by religious institutions. It's in recent centuries that this became governmental prerogative. So the ideal solution to the gay marriage issue is simple - take government out the equation. Let marriage again be the province of religion - so if you want to get married, you do so (or have it denied) within your church. And no special societal privileges go along with it.

On the other hand, any couple who wants one can get a civil union at their local town hall. And that's how a legal partnership is formed. It's perfect - civil unions aren't "marriage", so the foaming-at-the-mouth crowd gets to crow about how they can keep gays from marrying. And couples, gay and straight, can continue to get all the benefits of marriage today, but under a different title. Some gays would be able to get married - if they belong to denominations that allow it. Simplicity indeed.

Of course, this would result in duplication (people who get married and then get a civil union to make it legal) - but then again, since we have to take out marriage licenses in the first place isn't it pretty much the same thing?

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Stages

They've been gone for almost 36 hours now. It's not as bad as I just tried to sound, though. Jane and David took off yesterday morning to go visit her parents for a couple of days - they'll be back late Saturday afternoon (it's about a 6-7 hour drive). I had too much work on the docket, so I had to stay behind - and her folks were unable to make the Easter week trip they normally do, so it's nice. David is very lucky to have all four of his grandparents still - I figure it's good to enjoy it while he can.

It's a little rough on me, though (not that I need any pity), because to me there's nothing more important than having my family near. Even on the days where David, being mercurial, wants nothing to do with me - heck, even on the days that my wife wants nothing to do with me! So my substitute for them is extra work, for the most part. I'll also be getting some cleaning done tomorrow (after a long day on the South Shore), and besides that I at least still have my cat handy. Which helps.

I'm trying to develop some new business possibilities that, if it goes well, will finally let me expand the business safely. That's been a priority for some time now to me - I've developed things to the point where I feel I can make a good, reliable living from my work but I don't have the flexibility to be able to walk away for a week or so (that thing called "vacation") and know that things are taken care of. I haven't had a week-long vacation in over 4 years - came close a couple of times but not exactly. And I've come around to the idea that "making it" requires the ability to have more than one person working for you when you're in a service business like this. I work for several advertising companies right now, and one thing I've noticed is that the freelancers who contract to them may indeed be "Type A" personalities but they still can take themselves out of the game for a week or so. Thus far I can't, and I've got to change it one way or another. Hopefully I'm on to something, though.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Slowing the pace

I've been flat-out for about three weeks now. Feels good, even if I am driving too much. However, next week I'm expecting a bit of a slowdown - I'm still mainly booked, but with fewer activities per day. Plus, I picked up a few new clients that have some good potential.

On the home front, David's been a little less maddening the last few days, put really clingy in the mornings. And yes, he's potty trained. He even wears regular underwear to bed and has for a week now. Of course, by saying this I've just guaranteed that I will be getting up at 4AM to change his sheets - so I better go to sleep now and rest up.

Final notes for today - I'll be writing up a short review of Parallels Workstation for Intel-based Macs in the next few days. You'll find it on the LANtern, BNUG's blog. And I will be doing a huge update to David's photo pages on my home server sometime soon. I've got about 6 months of catching up to do. After that, there will be another update of it sometime in June or so, and then it'll officially go to updates about twice per year. I just don't have the time to make photo pages regularly anymore, even though my site stats on the home server tell me that the pages are popular.

Monday, April 10, 2006

I'm not cutting back on purpose

Really, I'm not. I'm just pretty busy as usual. I may slow down enough to enjoy turing 40 (this week), but I'm not counting on it.

In other news, last night David wore his underwear to bed for the first time. And woke up dry. I think we just might be there...

Monday, April 03, 2006

Prizes galore!

I came home a little early today from work - when I picked up the mail, I found that Jane had won a prize in some goofy-ass contest that I suspect she entered online. It was a pair of $10 gift cards for the Olive Garden.

Apparently that was first prize. Second prize must have been four cards.

We spent the weekend in Connecticut, visiting my family and friends of ours in a nearby town. Missed the Hell's Angels shooting by happenstance - we often go that way and it was at the time we would have been going that way. Traffic in southern CT is bad enough without dodging bullets.

Mac OS X 10.4.6 was released today - my MacBook Pro is busily updating itself. Hopefully it fixes the VPN problem with the 10.4.5 client (when talking to a 10.4.5 (PPC) VPN server, it disconnects after a minute). The third-party Digitunnel VPN client has no such problems, so it's something Apple. About 80MB to go - it's a biggun'!

I believe I can count David as fully potty trained now. Of course, that means he'll whiz himself tonight.