OK people, it's time to step up and get this ridiculous and discriminatory proposition repealed.  Gonna put my money where my mouth is and help get the signatures we need.  It's totally wrong.  It's past time for us to stand up and be heard.  Time to fight the good fight and all that.


Hopefully, I've done this right and you can click the photo to go to the page and read more about it!

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I am fascinated how four lines of text can make you feel such powerful emotion.  And then you take the power of those four lines and multiply it by all the people willing to stand up and tell their story, then put it on camera and to a great song.  Amazing. 

OMG I can't believe that I finally have finished block one... I decided that I liked the openness of the block like little_wren82.

Of course, I was just really sick of the black by the time I got to the center, so I swapped for the purple. I think I like it. Anyway, here is the overall piece and a closeup. These ought to work for that extreme closeup we all love so much...

If you get close enough, you can even see the raised portion that is the gold border done with the perle cotton. It's a total PITA but I think I like the way it looks so far. Hopefully, block 2 won't take me the several months of ignoring that it took to complete block 1. Ha ha.

( block one behind the cut )

There is a pall over my city. A smokey mass which has been there for several days. We are on fire, again. The smoke from the fires seems to creep down the hills and into the lower parts of the area overnight. The mornings are filled with a watery light that nearly penetrates the oddly orange tinted smoke. It is difficult to see more than a block away through the smoke. Outside my door it smells like a campfire, a scent I know well and love. But it is not something happy like a campfire, it is the foothills burning. I have been inside my house with the windows closed and the less than awesome air conditioning units running. The smoke makes it harder for me to breathe. My car is covered with ash this morning. I am glad to be in my house, near enough to the fires to be affected, but not near enough to be in danger. I feel badly for the people who have had to evacuate. Whose homes are lost or damaged, their lives uprooted.

Fire affects everyone to differing degrees. The city of Glendale has delayed opening schools for the new year because of the fire. At least one of it's high schools is housing those who were evacuated. Two brave fire fighters lost their lives when they were overrun by fire as they tried to find a way out for workers on the top of a hill. Both men leave families behind, a true tragedy. The historic Mount Wilson observatory and several communications towers are in real danger as well. Most broadcasters have backup towers, but this is the main location for many TV and radio stations towers. Several people ignored a mandatory evacuation order to stay and defend their homes in one of the canyons. I am still not sure if they are still there or were rescued - lot's of conflicting reports. I can't decide if they are brave or stupid. Circumstance makes that determination I guess. If they get cut off and can't get out and have to be rescued probably equals stupid. If they don't get cut off and can get out, maybe foolhardy in their bravery. Luck of the draw. Still, based on what's happened, I don't think they are saving their homes from this fire.

The fire has destroyed so much already. It nearly doubled in size overnight Sunday. Last night, only about 15,000 more acres. It's now around 122,000 acres. I find it hard to comprehend the actual size of that much acreage. As we talked about it last night, Don gave me a rough estimate of about 10 miles by 15 miles, 150 square miles. According to the LA Times article that I read this morning, it's nearly 25 miles wide east to west and 18 miles long from north to south. So, to bring it into something I can comprehend, that's about 485 football fields. That's a lot of football....

I need to find my inhaler. I may add some more to this later.

www.brunching.com/geekhierarchy.html

I got this link from the startrek  group, which I suppose just makes the flying geek flag even more obvious...

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/divorce
Please, feel free to follow this link and sign the petition.  The more people who care and stand up for equalilty the better.

From DailyKos: 
In the words of poster SusanG,  "That long national nightmare? It's over.  To celebrate, the best version of the national anthem ever."


Rock on Marvin, rock on.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2008/12/18/quot-first-lady-of-star-trek-quot-majel-roddenberry-passes-away-at-the-age-of-76.aspx

I hadn't actually heard this until I read my friends list today.  Majel Barrett Roddenberry died on Thursday.  I'm sad, as she, along with Nichelle Nichols, was a pretty awesome role model when I was a kid.  Chauvinistically shunted from second in command to nurses uniform or not.  The link above includes some great highlights available on YouTube.

I've just finally gotten online after several glorious days of travel and no internet connections working at hostels and that sort of thing.  In a few words, Ireland was awesome.  Scotland was awesome.  England was also awesome.  Driving on the left side of the road - awesome.  Though I must say that the way the roads are marked sucks heavily.  Teeny narrow roads with little in the way of lighting.  And it was raining damn near the whole time.  I think I am growing mold in my lungs.  The cough is better so I know the asthma is getting back under control.  Pretty rough for a while.  Once we are back in Bergen, I might be able to do some photo uploads, otherwise, that's what I'm doing when I get home next Saturday.  I've seen some incredible things, met some really cool people and gotten really wet and muddy at some of the most amazing sites ever.   I can't wait to get to the pictures.  If we do this again, I may have to bring my own computer, just to be able to keep up with all the photos!  Any way, too much to say and I'm dying for food - this getting dark at 3:30 thing really messes up your schedule.  We hop a train for Bergen in the morning and I will try to get something together to say by the time we arrive. 

Still no chance to upload photos.  One of these days...  Yesterday I went on a major trek around Bergen.  Granted none of it far from my hotel room, but it still put a lot of steps on my total.  I really wish I had brought my pedometer!  The curiousity it killing me.  Any way, I started the day back at the Tourist Information building.  They have some nice frescoes there, also got the Bergen card so that I can see things at a discount.  After that, it was off to Maria Kirke.  It is just really beautiful inside.  The gent watching the place during it's open hours today originally hails from Downey, California.  We had a nice chat about the church while I took a ton of photos.

I also went to Håkons Hall and tromped around the grounds outside.  To my great sadness, the Rosenkrantz tower is only open on Sundays at this time of year.  The hall is very interesting - it must have been quite nice in it's heyday.  The walls are three feet thick on the outside.  Most of the walls are original - the interior was rebuilt after WW2.  In about 1945 a munitions boat exploded in the harbor and took out the roof and started a fire that gutted all of the buildings in the area.  The hall is surrounded by a majority of the original buildings and some ruins near the fortress walls.  The original church area is marked out by hedges.  Some nutter decided to rip the thing out in some purge hundreds of years ago.  You don't really notice much how sturdy the area is until you get near the edge - must have been a pretty good fortress at that.  Lots of the buildings are still in use, even if not to their original purpose.  There is a huge construction project going next to everything.  I thought that that was the Festinghus museum, but apparently it's only part.  The other section which seems to still be visitable is right behind my hotel.  Talk about location, location, location!  Will have to try to get there tomorrow.

Just down the street is the World Heritage site of Brygge - it's the original city from the 1100's and onwards.  Most of the buildings are still in use as shops and offices.  The rest are in the proceess of restoration.  Some of the buildings have failed foundations and are in the process of restoration.  This section was built over thrown earth which extended the land into the shallow end of the harbor.  The wooden buildings in Brygge all lean rather drunkenly in several different directions - it's amazing how far some of them manage to get off true and not fall over or in, it's almost comical in some ways.  This is due also to the munitions explosion in '45.  I've been thru and past Brygge several times now - it's between the hotel and most of the rest of Bergen.  Today I managed to wander thru most of Bryggen - the long narrow settlement buildings and the few stand alone buildings in the back.  I heard part of a tour guides chat about things there.  There is one building in the back that was the only one not to burn down in the either 1170 or 1700 something fire.  I don't remember and the rest of what she said only would make sense if you were looking at something. 

Spent last evening at Iris and Bruce's new house.  They have the most incredible view of the fjord, but the steepest driveway I've seen in a while.  The roads in the area around their house are equipped with electric coils to warm the road surface, as is their driveway.  Probably easier than salting or sanding little narrow roads and safer than sliding into someone's house.

Today I wandered thru the Hanseatic Museum - cursing my rechargeable batteries that died in the second room.  The charger said that they were ready.  Oh no.  Not really.  Of course the really interesting stuff was after the death too.  Curse you Red Baron!  After that, I hit the local Rema 1000 (grocery) to buy some normal batteries.  Neither of which lasted very long, but got me thru the rest of my day.  The Bryggens Museum was really interesting.  In the basement are some open excavations of the site showing ruins of settlement buildings in their original locations.  Very cool - also, a bit of replica dock and part of a ship.  It was quite interesting to see.  They have a lot of displays of crafts and artifacts from the area as well.  Up in the top floor was a really interesting walk thru display about magic and witches.  I took lots of pictures of everything.  On the way back to the hotel, I noticed a glass covering over something across the street and wandered past it to take a look.  Turns out that it's another open and preserved excavation, this time of St. Catherine's hospital for women, built about 1250.  Nothing to see but the original stone floor, but still kind of interesting.  I've tried three times to get to the Galleri Bryggen.  It's supposed to be open til 6.  Yesterday at 4 they were already gone.  Today at 3 still gone.  No sign that they are closed for the season but oh well.  Tomorrow I am off to the aquarium and maybe some art museums.  Now, to go order pizza.....

And I suppose one must also say that includes large swathes of Europe as well.   I hit passport control in Amsterdam, expecting the usual questions one hears on tv or movies or what they were grilling the guy in the next line with....  Instead I get this:  "American?  Did you vote?  Good.  Welcome to Amsterdam."  That rocked so hard I can't even tell you.  Driving to the hotel with Iris and Bruce from Bergen airport we see windows plastered with Obama posters.  I have seen so many things with Obama on them now it just amazes me.  I passed thru a bookstore and saw his book in Norsk.  Big large stack o' Bama books.  Took a pic - once I figure out how I can upload it, I'll ad it here...

The flight was interesting.  Didn't sleep before it as it was 1:30 before we finished culling things out so that the bags were under the weight limit and Don figured out what he really needed.  the alarm was set for 2:30, so we gave up on sleep and played with the dogs for a while.  So.  Have I mentioned that I don't really sleep well in airports or airplanes?  Caught a nap in Portland - all of about 1/2 hour.  Had the entire concourse to myself too.   That was an odd feeling.  Not a lot of flights out of that end during the day apparently.  Off season must be good.  Only 100 passengers on an A330 that can hold 250+.  We all pretty much had our own rows.  Mine was two seats - not that I could sleep even when laying down.  Cushy otherwise.  Watched a lot of movies and did a lot of cross stitch.  This trip has been all about the layovers.  Frequent flyer miles are a fine thing but the gaps you get stuck with rather suck.  I had 8 hours in Portland, 5 hours in Amsterdam and only one hour in Oslo because I had to buy the last leg separately.

Met up with Don in baggage claim in Oslo.  He was supposed to be on a flight about the same time I landed, but he was dealing with a lost bag.  The one with the books and papers and most of his shirts.....  Evil airlines.  I came down to the lobby to use the computer and checked the website for the airline - apparently it made it way at last to the airport and is in the delivery process.  All to the good, though he needed at least one of the books today to finish up some handout materials.  Hopefully it will get here tomorrow early and I can take it out to the school.  I went up there today with him.  We had lunch with Iris and Bruce and met a few of her co-workers.  Don met many of them last fall, and they seemed happy to see him again.  His friend Sven from grad school teaches here as well.  Apparently lots of Norwegians go to Stanford for grad school.

After lunch, I took a bus back to the hotel and then walked thru Bryggen.  It's the historic area (the whole city is a UNESCO world heritage site) near our hotel.  Wandered around looking at some of the oldest things I have ever seen.  Ambled around the Maria Kirk - an 850 year old church that still maintains it's glory from the Hanseatic merchants that furnished it.  Hopefully I can catch the open hours tomorrow to see the inside.  Frescoes at the Tourist Information building too, where I can get the Bergen card that is basically the here buy this and see our museum for free card.  Lots of them to see!

OK - my fingers are cold and I've more than used up my 15 minutes... back to watching the BBC election coverage.  Go Obama!

Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in a heterosexual non-same-sex marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

cool video by way of DailyKOS

I am official!  The ballot is filled out, enveloped and stamped.  Into the mail tomorrow it goes.  Hooray.  It feels kind of weird though - I think I will miss the voting booth and chatting with people in line.  I would really like to see what the turnout is like.  I wanted to volunteer at the precinct this year.  However, I will get to see what the reaction is like from another country.  I will be waking to the counting most likely - and watching with bated breath to see what happens.  This too will be interesting.

Following links can lead you to some very interesting things....thus prving that the web is a very odd place.

( John Cleese, giant pink rabbits and more... )