NO on Prop 23

NO on Prop 26

Increased Property Tax

We got our property tax bill yesterday and realized they were due at the end of the month... not sure what we were suppose to do, as our property taxes are part of our mortgage that we pay every month. So Kenny called Bank of America to ask. Good thing is they were aware of them and planned on paying for them by Nov. 1st. Bad thing was when she told Kenny the amount $1139.25 twice a year, which was last years amounts it wasn't the same amount on this new statement. It is now $1895.94 twice a year. ..that's about $1500 more a year in property taxes. And because of the increase our monthly mortgage is going to have to go up to cover the taxes. Now we have to wait for BofA to get back to us and let us know how much it's going to go up... We're expecting at least $125 extra a month, which is going to hurt us. I plan on calling the Assessor's to find out why the taxes went up to much from last year but in the end there really isn't anything we can do... I mean we have to pay property taxes, whatever amount they are...

YES on Prop 25

YES on Prop 27

YES on Prop 24

NO on Prop 22

YES on Prop 21

NO on Prop 20

YES on Prop 19

Does It get Better ???

Today I watched a video made by Google LBGT employees, titled 'It gets better'. That brought up the question, if it really gets better. Click here if you want to check out the video!! There's a very short answer to that question:

NO !!

It absolutely doesn't get better at all!! As long as the underlaying problem doesn't change... it won't get any better. People who actually believe that it gets better, just because you get older, are just kidding themselves!! The only thing that actually changes is, that you learn how to better deal with the crap, that society throws at you. With the time you get better ignoring the crap and not letting it drag you down. But that certainly doesn't mean that its going to get any easier.

All the speeches that have been given that 'it does get better' are all politically motivated. Fact is, it doesn't get better. Fact is, the progress in LGBT equality in the United States within the last 40 years is basically nonexistent !! All other pro-western democracies are making progress in the LGBT equality area. I'm not talking about progressive western countries... I'm talking about countries that used to be way more conservative than the United States. Even those countries are moving forward!! So, what the fuck is wrong with the United States ???

• Problem #1 is, that the United States are not a democracy... they're in fact a dictatorship.
• Problem #2 is, that Democrats and GOP are equally bad.
• When it comes to LBGT equality issues, there is literally no difference between GOP and Democrats.
• Neither party wants progress... they only need the LBGT vote to win elections.
• Both parties make phony promises... and they have no intention to ever live up to those promises.
• Why they LBGT keeps going back to those parties over and over again is incomprehensible.

For the LBGT Youth I have only 1 piece of advise: Get out of the country as long as you can, it's only going to get way worse, than it currently is!!!

If we were to meet in 200 years from now and look at the LBGT issues in the United States... we will be seeing exactly the same thing than we do today. Nothing will have changed, no progress will have been made!!!

Black Out

Well we have been having some rain for the past 2 days. Yesterday evening we finally got heavier rain fronts moving through the Antelope Valley. For most part it was pretty uneventful. Well that changed at 2.05 am. I was about 10 minutes into watching DS9 episode 'Destiny' when a fairly heavy rain front moved in and the rain was coming down fairly heavy. I grabbed my Blackberry and started tweeting about it. I had about 1/2 of my tweet finished when the power went out. Well that certainly didn't deter me from finishing the tweet. I just had to type the last hash tag, when Daisy came walked up to me, as she really doesn't like the high pitched beep of the smoke alarm. So I got up... without power the electrical recliner doesn't go down by itself, so I climbed out of the recliner without knocking over the side table with the soda on it and moved towards the kitchen. I bumped first into the fan and then into the coffee table. When I got to the kitchen Kenny came out of the master bedroom using his cellphone as a light. I went into the laundry room and grabbed the flashlight.

I remembered that in on of the drawers should still be a lighter... a leftover from the days when I used to smoke. I found that lighter fairly quick and light one of the candles in the living room. Kenny went back to bed and I was tweeting about the blackout. This blackout was different than the once we had before. Usually we only loose the power on the hill, that we're living on. This time Sierra Colony and all properties along Sierra Highway were without power as well. I tweeted that sitting in the living room by candlelight might be romantic, but is really boring.

Right after that it hit me that I had a fully charged iPod... so I went over to the entrance, grabbed my iPod, laid down on the couch in the living room and was listening to music.

About 1/2 hour into the blackout I saw lightening strikes going down over Sierra Pelona. I watched it from our back porch, and since the ground had already gotten a good soaking I didn't have to worry about the lightening strikes causing wildfires. By 3.10 am the smoke alarm started beeping, what was driving Daisy crazy and the power came back on.

I killed the candle and went to reset all the clocks in the kitchen, when we lost power the second time. Once again I was standing in the dark... luckily I left the flashlight on the kitchen counter. I grabbed the flashlight and reignited the candle again. The second blackout only lasted for about 5 or 6 minutes. After that we kept power.

Living pretty much out in the boonies blackouts aren't that uncommon, especially not during late fall and winter. It always amazes me how an minor event, like looses power, is turning out to be quite an inconvenience and how much we in fact take electricity for granted.

There is a lesson to be learned here: If rain is expected to move in make sure that your cellphone and your iPod are fully charged. The cellphone is your only remaining connection to 'civilization' and the iPad is the one thing that keeps you entertained during a blackout!!

National Coming Out Day

National Coming Out Day (NCOD) is an internationally observed civil awareness day for coming out and discussion about gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. It is observed by members of the LGBT communities and their supporters (often referred to as "allies") on October 11 every year, or October 12 in the United Kingdom.

With 11 teen suicides in the past few months due to gay bullying and sexuality confusion, with all the hate that is being spewed by this new Tea Party group (financed and back by Mormons and Texas Oil) and all this anti-gay marriage crap it's more important then ever to come together as a community and show our support for all those still in the closet to afraid to open that door.

Compared to what a lot of people go through, my coming out was fairly painless. I knew at least from the age of 12 on that I was gay... but it took me 3 years more to fully come out.

I am a GAY Man and I'm PROUD of it!!

Final Well Repair Bill

Well today we got something in the mail that I wasn't looking particularly forward to... the Final Well Repair Bill. The bill I was expecting was somewhere in the neighborhood of $ 4500 and more. So I was pleasantly surprised when we opened the bill and it was 'only' $ 2584.

It's still a lot of money, but far lass than I was expecting it to be and so much less than it could have been. Now we have a new pump and a new motor and for the next 10 to 15 years the well should be running without any problems. 'Fun stuff' like this is just part of being a homeowner in a rural area.

Fixing the Well

Those of you guys who read my Blog regularly probably know that Roadrunner (a Well Serica Company) was supposed to pull the pump last Friday. Well that never happened and they didn't call when they were coming instead.

To make a long story short... after 2 additional calls to them they finally showed up today around noon. So they start pulling out one well pipe after the next one and after a little over 500 ft they finally got to the pump. Now we know that our well is about 520 or 530 ft deep... and that's actually less deep than I would have thought. If I had to guess, I would have estimated to well to be somewhere between 600 and 700 ft deep.

After some examination turns out that the motor is bad. They put in a 2 horse power pump and apparently there's less water draining to the pump than the pump is actually able to handle... and that is what in the end burnt out the motor. So we replaced the pump with a 5 gallon/minute 1 1/2 horse power pump. The well pipes are still fine and should be good for at least another 15 years or so. After that the put everything back in and a little after 3 pm they were done. We don't know the exact cost yet, but it's somewhere around $ 3,000. But that's part of owning a house.

After the well people had left we took a look at the pump and the flashing indicator light told us that the pump was running. So we walked up to the holding tank and we could hear the water gushing into the holding tank... and that was a noise that made me really happy!!

A weird Dream

Last night I had one of the most bizarre dreams in a very long time. Usually I can't recall my dreams anyway, but for some reason this one was stuck in my memory. (The actual parts of the dream are printed in bold letters, while the text that's printer in regular font is my commentary).

I get up 6.30 in morning an prepare tea. That by itself would be quite odd, since I don't get up at 6.30 in the morning and I certainly don't have tea... unless I've a really bad cold.

Shortly thereafter my handyman arrives. Turns out to be porn star Stevie Cruz... and he arrived in the Voyager Delta Flyer. You would think that someone arriving in the Delta Flyer would be a little out of the ordinary, but that seemed to be completely normal. Apparently hiring a porn star as handyman is nothing out of the ordinary. I'm sure he's good with tools, but those tools are not usually used in home remodel.

So we went to work and started with the remodel of bedroom #4. Funny thing is our house doesn't even have 4 bedrooms.

First my handyman and I tear all the cabinets out of the bedroom. Apparently there used to be a kitchen in the bedroom. But I leave the the stove in there. After that we start tiling the feature wall, but we still don't remove the stove... we just tiled over it. Neither of that did strike my handyman as being out of the ordinary.

Next we cut a hole in the floor and put in a staircase... and suddenly you have the option to swim out to the hot tub. At the time it seemed to be the most logical thing to do.

After that we put in a wet bar, where the kitchen used to be... but now the stove (that we tiled over) has now become a wine fridge with a kegerator on top of it. Apparently noting that needs to be questioned either.

Next up was to put the bed in. Once everything was complete I ended up with a crossover between between bedroom, dungeon, wet-bar and screening room. I was mighty proud of the accomplishment.

After that we said good bye and my handyman left in the Delta Flyer.

Once I woke up it occurred to me that there was one part of that dream that was particularly bizarre: You hire a porn star as handyman and you don't get to make out with him. That has to be the definition of absolutely bizarre!!

Desert Thunderstorm

Thunderstorm

Tonight we had thunderstorm with everything a good thunderstorm needs: lightening, thunder and a little rain. Well, Daisy didn't like that idea at all. She hates lightening, but the thunder really freaks her out.

After we had finished watching episode 3 & 4 of True Blood, Kenny went to drop off the Netflix DVD at the mailbox. He had just started to drive off the property when I heard Daisy bark through the screen door. That just struck my as particular odd, as she never does that. So I went to investigate what was going on. Suddenly a black Lab starts walking up to the house. At first Daisy had her Mohawk going on... that wasn't too surprising, but finally they two dogs smelled each other through the screen door and Daisy was fine. Both dogs were hanging out there until Kenny got back from the mailbox. During the thunderstorm one of our neighbors dog had gotten out and was still pretty freaked out and panting heavily. Luckily the black lab had a name and phone number attached to his collar. So Kenny called and we mad arrangements for our neighbor to pick her dog up.

Apparently Daisy is getting better with getting along with other dogs.