Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Double Up!

John, our Blog Father, offers up this challenge for this week's Monday Photo Shoot:

As many of you know, yesterday marked the second anniversary of AOL Journals going live, and two celebrate all things two, here's this week's Photo Shoot:

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a picture of two of something.
Two of what? I leave that to you. But they have to be two of the same type of thing. Don't just put, like, a cookie and a Hot Wheel in the same picture and say it counts as two things. Two cookies, two Hot Wheels. You know. Double your pleasure and all that.

Well, I figured if two was good, then two times two would be even better <g>..... So, I offer up for your viewing pleasure this picture that I took a couple of weeks ago at our local zoo. This was definitely a case of being in the right place at the right time. Unlike Mr. Scalzi's offering of a little software magic, this picture is completely untouched except for cropping it down to a more manageable size and the addition of a border and drop shadow. 

Preview

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Weekend Assignment #73:Your Best Entries

In keeping with the festive spirit of the Second Annual Journal Anniversary Celebrations, John Scalzi over at By the Way offers the following for this week's Weekend Assignment.

Weekend Assignment #73: From your own AOL Journal or AIM Blog, pick your own favorite entry from the last year (from 8/21/04 onward). Link to it in the comment thread below, so we can all see what it was. You can alternately, of course, create a new entry where you link to your favorite entry, but that seems a bit overly complicated. Linking directly to your favorite entry will be fine. If you want to include any thoughts on the entry in your comment, well, that would be great, too.

The entry that I finally chose for this assignment was ironically enough an entry that I made in response to another of John's Weekend Assignments. A Memory of when you were Six.

In looking thru my archives for this assignment I came up with several entries that I rather liked, and it was hard to choose just one. In case you were interested, these were the 'runner's up'

Another entry in response to a John Scalzi Weekend Assignment, this time about What We are Thankful for.

And, This entry let you know my feelings about The Winter Holidays.

I've only been a member of the AOL Journaling Community for about a year, and one of the things I found interesting in looking back over the last year of entries is how my entries have changed. The early ones are text only. Later you have graphics and photos being used, but not very well <g>. As the learning curve is climbed you start to see photos with text wrapped around, things being centered and more attention paid to presentation, and finally the addition of backgrounds and better pictures. It was kind of fun looking back at the 'evolution' of my AOL Journal.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

CarnivAOL!

Paul, of Aurora Walking Vacation Fame, has put up the new edition of CarnivAOL! I actually submitted something, although it made me feel a bit like tooting my own horn ;p

Anyway, if you are looking for some new Journals to read, hop right on over to CarnivAOL and give it a whirl!

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Your Monday Photo Shoot on Tuesday: Unusual Objects

Before anyone says anything.... Yes, I know it's Sunday. Better late than never I say! <LOL>   John Scalzi's Monday Photo Shoot looked like it might be fun this week, so even though I'm really late, here it is. If you want to play along, click Here....  

Your Monday Photo Shoot on Tuesday: Unusual Objects
We had a lot of fun with close-ups with last week's photo shoot, and this week instead of getting closer, I thought we'd get... weirder.

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Snap a picture of something odd that you have in your house. And, no, don't take any pictures of your spouse. Really, that's just mean. No, I'm talking some object that when people see it in your house, they stop and say something like "Huh. You don't see that every day."
Now, grab that camera and go looking for the odd and unusual in your own home. Snap that photo, put it in your Journal, Blog or wherever, and come back and leave a link!

Hmmmm, we have lots of strange things we picked up during our travels, but I think this is one of the neater ones. G. and I had a chance to visit the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon while in Mexico. For some reason this statue made mostly of obsidian fascinated G. and he had to have it. Actually, it is a really nice piece which we purchased from a reputable dealer we were put in contact with by the guides that had been hired to take a group of us to the pyramids. It even comes with a certificate of authentication that it is a museum quality piece.

Preview

You can't really tell it here, but it is about 14 inches tall and about 11 inches wide at its widest point. I don't remember off the top of my head what god it represents. Sorry <g>

The Pyramids of the Sun and Moon are located at Teotihuacan, also known as the City of the Gods. I have pictures of us standing at the top of each of the pyramids, along with many pictures of the Avenue of the Dead. It was one of the more interesting side trips that we made.

Saturday, August 6, 2005

A Borrowed Entry

We interrupt this Journal for the following important message!

I was over at a favorite Journal of mine this morning where I saw this entry. Russ is right, this is a very important issue, and this letter states it very eloquently.

So, without further ado..... (and with permission <g>) I reprint an entry from ToonguyKC of Inner and Outer Demons. This is a specific link to this entry. Oh, and if you aren't currently reading Russ' Journal... you should try it! He is a very interesting and wonderful person.....

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The Letter

Every once in awhile I get something forwarded to me that isn't one of those "angel hugs" or a dancing baby or a lawyer joke.  Sometimes I get something that touches me deeply.  It's kinda long, but if you have a minute or two -- please read this.  I'll be back later with another entry.

The following is a very strong and moving letter written by the mother of
a gay boy in
Vermont...

"Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual
menace in
Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from
you good people. I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual
agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing
as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been
robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from
your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was
physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school
because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but
he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He
was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be
doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure
his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the
heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living
any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without
dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the
homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children
to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him,
and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you
brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen
to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to
join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you
won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a
critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute
certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more
substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to
you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own
heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part.
It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those
of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad
habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are
you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you
have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why
would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that
Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders.
Both sides of my family have lived in
Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul
a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are spe
aking for "true
Vermonters."

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for
this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual
agenda" could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father
fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded
the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he
fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered
no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the
end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the
man.

You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell
that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure
of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that
companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax
laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence
of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage. You use religion to abdicate
your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious
people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and
God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about
homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits
of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be
better human beings than we are?"

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that? "



Written by toonguykc . (Link to this entry)