doubting thom

A part of me naturally is exultant at today’s 4-3 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court striking down a state ban on same-sex marriages [link is to the Washington Post article], ruling that the right to marry includes “the right to marry the person of one’s choice,” and requiring the state legislature to take steps to comply with the ruling within 180 days.

Whether and whom to marry, how to express sexual intimacy, and whether and how to establish a family–these are among the most basic of every individual’s liberty and due process rights. And central to personal freedom and security is the assurance that the laws will apply equally to persons in similar situations.

But the cynical, pessimistic side is convinced that this will be the impetus for a successful federal constitutional amendment permanently barring marriage–and probably even any near-comparable civil unions or other legal status–between same-sex partners in the U.S.

[Full text of the decision, from FindLaw] (Adobe PDF)

Add one more big item to the list of things that need to be replaced: in addition to the refrigerator and computer monitor replaced last year, the dishwasher still waiting to be replaced, and the heat pump and car due to be replaced in the next few weeks, my 40″ Toshiba widescreen television has been showing signs of failure. The money I took out of the refinance practically is spent already, and I only just deposited it today.

So I’ve been salivating over potential new televisions. CircuitCity.com this week is offering to give a gift card worth 10% of one’s purchases, and many of the large projection and flat-screen televisions there already are on sale and offer additional rebates; shipping and setup also is quite low. The Sony KP51WS510 51″ widescreen HDTV monitor there, for example, has been reduced from $2000 to $1800, with an additional $100 mail-in rebate and just $40 for delivery and in-home setup; that would also give me a $180 gift card to use at Circuit City–not enough for that iPod I want, but it would make a start.

Over at Synaptic Discharge last week, Kevin wrote about his brand-new Sony KF-50WE610 50″ Grand Wega™ HDTV-ready rear-projection LCD TV, which looks really pretty sweet, but I just can’t justify to myself spending over $3K for a television, another $300-$600 for a stand and an additional several hundred for an HD tuner (though, granted, the KP51WS510 I’m looking at doesn’t include an integrated HD tuner either).

Sigh. Nine months ago I didn’t watch even ten hours of television a week; now I’m a couch potato actually thinking about spending a couple thousand dollars for a new television. I blame it all on TiVo.

When I got home from work late this evening, tired and frustrated and feeling sorry for myself, I found three packages waiting for me: two from the loan agent, one of which included a check for the cash I took out with my refinance, and a box from Amazon.com.

The first two certainly were welcome, though expected; the latter was completely unexpected, and a very pleasant surprise that really lifted my spirits. Cornelia of Pixie with a Crash Helmet, following in the footsteps of Buzz at Buzzstuff.net, who in turn had received a gift from his wishlist, had chosen to send a gift from the wishlist of someone on her blogroll–and that someone turned out to be me.

So I’m sitting here itching to dive into my new copy of The Fall of the Kings, by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, set in the same world as Kushner’s Swordspoint, itself a wonderful, witty and wicked take on the Regency novel.

Cornelia, you’re a gem. Thank you so very much.

And so I’ve also decided to keep the chain going. I’ve just completed an order for a couple of items from one of the folk on my own blogroll (the list of possible selectees is not a large one, since very few on my blogroll have included a link to an Amazon wishlist, unfortunately for those who have not). By the middle of next week, someone should be receiving a treat.

When I first got this job at the Department of State, people kept telling me that the State Department was a great agency for which to work, and that the Foreign Service Institute was the best bureau within the agency. And I felt a certain sense of homecoming, given that my first real-world job was a summer clerical position at the State Department between my sophomore and junior years of college.

And, to be fair, there are some benefits to working here. For example, the commute really can’t be beat: it’s a mile and a half door-to-door, and that’s against traffic. By car it takes about ten minutes during rush hour, on foot about twenty.

It’s a fascinating place, in many respects, feeling as much like an academic institution as a government facility, and with a beautiful 70+ acre campus. And my co-workers, by and large, are an interesting, intelligent lot; the language instructors, especially–all of whom are native speakers–come from an amazing variety of personal and professional backgrounds.

And, while my salary is half what it was in the private sector, at first I thought it was a worthwhile trade-off because I was working only about half to two-thirds the number of hours I was putting in at the dot-com. More recently, though, I’ve been putting in ten, eleven and twelve-hour days on a regular basis. The workload keeps increasing and shows no sign of slowing down, and along with the lack of recognition, bureaucracy and the overweening, unmerited self-importance and sheer idiocy of a certain percentage of government employees is increasingly frustrating, stifling and stressful.

Earlier this week, the Partnership for Public Service and the Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation published rankings of the “best places to work in the federal government,” based on surveys of federal employees. Out of 28 cabinet departments and independent agencies, the State Department came in at 19th place, with a score of 61.9 (the highest rated agency, NASA, scored 71.4, while the lowest, FEMA, scored 58.0). Even the Air Force (number 7), Army (10) and Navy (12) were deemed better agencies for which to work, though at least we were deemed better than the Marine Corps (25).

Currently, I have an application in for a position with the Department of the Interior, which is tied with Commerce for 8th place. The particular subagency at which I’m applying–the National Park Service–itself is tied for 45th place in a field of 115 separately identified subagencies. Among subagencies, NASA again took the lead, with the top four subagency slots–and half of the top ten–coming from that agency. EPA had three of the other five top ten spots, with Treasury’s ATF and the GSA’s Federal Supply Service rounding out the top ten.

On the other hand, State was ranked 7th in terms of lowest turnover rate, with only 4.7% separations in FY2002. I wonder if that means I’m more or less stuck here.

Neither Jeff nor I have said anything explictly online about this until now (he isn’t typically as personal in his own journal as I tend to be here), but you can probably read between the lines. He and I had begun discussing the prospect of moving in together some time ago and, although we’ve taken no formal steps, on a practical basis we’re pretty much already doing so, little by little.

For example, I’ve cleared out drawers for him in the bathroom (he’s taken Kyan to heart and has lots of product) and the bedroom, and bought extra coat hangers (of course, in that way we have, he brought over a bunch from his apartment the same day); this weekend we may tackle cleaning out the spare closet where I have a lot of junk stored so he will have someplace specifically to hang some of his clothes. His laptop is now a node on my home wireless network. He helps with the dishes, the dusting and feeding Alex, especially when I’m away visiting my family, among other chores around the condo.

But most telling, perhaps, he’s just added two of his own Season Subscriptions to the TiVo.

Federal agencies are closed today for the Veteran’s Day holiday, so I have the day off. It’s the largest chunk of uninterrupted time I’ve had to myself since before my father died, really since he went back into the hospital in early September. Since then, I’ve been at work, with my family, or here with Jeff. Don’t get me wrong; I love my family and I love Jeff–and Jeff has been really great about recognizing my need for some alone time, and offering to indulge it if I but ask–but for this moderately strong Myers-Briggs I, having so little “Thom time” has sometimes been stressful and difficult, and today is turning out to be a wonderful, well-appreciated opportunity to recharge.

For a while, I’d been telling Jeff that I had been thinking about maintaining a list of GLBTQ (gay, lesbian, bisexual, homosexual, transgender, queer, etc.) folk in the DC metro area (DC; Northern Virginia, including so far Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Herndon, Montclair, Vienna, Woodbridge; Maryland, including so far Baltimore, Gaithersburg, Hyattsville, Laurel, Silver Spring, Upper Marlboro) who maintain blogs or journals. Today, with the day off, I finally had some time to put into it and, for what it’s worth, here it is. If you know of others not included, please drop me a line or leave a comment, and I’ll update the list. If you have other suggestions for making this more useful, please let me know those as well.

Last updated: 13 March 2004
Total sites listed: 122
Sites with XML/RSS feeds: 91
Get the OPML file for these RSS feeds.

Continue reading →

Ok, I admit it. I’m technologically and culturally spoiled. I like my conveniences and my gadgets.

Today I rented a compact car from Enterprise to come visit my mom, and I got a Ford Escort. It has no cruise control, no CD player, and the mirrors and windows are manually controlled. The engine is loud and the entire car starts to vibrate even at just moderate speeds.

Earlier this evening, my mom, sister, youngest nephew and I watched Finding Nemo. Mom does have a DVD player, at least, but her television is a smallish set with standard 4×3 resolution, so we had to watch the movie in full frame (pan and scan), with sound coming from the TV’s built-in tinny speakers, rather than the widescreen and Dolby 5.1 surround sound to which I’m accustomed. And while Mom had the news on earlier in the other room, I heard a feature on tonight’s lunar eclipse; I got up and ran in there to see the segment, but it had just ended. No TiVo to immediately jump back and catch it again.

And now I’m surfing and posting from an America Online dialup, to which I’m never able to get connected at higher than about 33kbps; it’s so agonizingly slow. It’s like driving backwards in time as I head from Arlington here.

On the other hand, there is one benefit to being here. The night skies here are so relatively unpolluted by light that the quantity and quality of stars visible during moonless nights and eclipses–which I did observe live from the sun (moon?) room, as the moon cleared the trees in the woods in which Mom’s house sits–are just breathtaking. I don’t get starry skies like that back at home (“Mac” discussed something similar in her entry on Go Fish about tonight’s eclipse).

I’m becoming obsessed, as is often my wont, with the Prius. I visit the Prius website almost daily, scour the news for articles, google the web for mentions in other blogs and online sources, carry around my printed brochure, etc.

Today, for example, Gizmodo (one of my regular reads, linked from the “interesting & cool” section in the right column), “the gadgets weblog,” included an item about the “gadgety new Prius.”

Earlier this week, Motor Trend published a very positive article. Interestingly the only slightly negative comment by the reviewer was that “a bit more of a traditional look might have been more appealing. The exterior design is one of the few things I don’t like about the new Prius.” Conversely, I think that the sleek aerodynamic styling of the 2004 model adds significantly to its appeal.

In an article entitled “Leaner, Meaner and Greener,” the Washington Post also reviewed the Prius this past Sunday, noting that:

First impressions were bad. The cues were wrong.

The Smart Entry ignition key wasn’t a key. It was a square electronic fob inserted into a dashboard slot — something more useful for punching a time clock than starting a car.

I pushed the power button but felt no life. I looked for the gearshift lever but found a joystick instead. It was my first hour in the 2004 Toyota Prius gas-electric sedan. I didn’t like it. But my distaste was short-lived.

The joystick became a joy, the easiest transmission-selection device I’ve ever used.

The reviewer went on to summarize that “[t]he 2004 Prius goes to the top of my list for best city cars. It has a practically unbeatable combination of good mileage, low emissions, power and scootability.”

Both the Post article and a feature in GEICO’s quarterly magazine, however, noted that one may need to drive more defensively in a Prius, because it’s so quiet in battery-mode (as when cruising a parking lot, or coming out of a garage) that pedestrians don’t hear it coming.

I’ve also become a bit of a Prius evangelist (similar to my earlier experiences evangelizing the Macintosh and the Saturn, and my current experience singing the praises of TiVo to everyone I know); in addition to my boss, who ended up placing her order for one even before I did, I’ve talked several other people at work into strongly considering the Prius.

Hallelujah, brothers and sisters! Release yourselves from the shackles of the gas pump! Breathe deeply of the clean air of Prius! Let me hear you shout!

A little past 1:00 this afternoon, the lawyer/notary public arrived at my condo building. About 20 minutes later, he handed me the last piece of paper for my signature, from the two large stacks with which we’d begun, and I commented on how easy it was–and almost scarily so–to recommit myself to owing such a large sum of money.

So the refinance is done, the papers are on their way for processing, and I should have my cash-out check by the end of next week or early the week after. And as the first payment really is included as part of the financing process, I’ll now skip a month, so I won’t have to make another mortgage payment until January, which will give me a little extra cash for the holidays.