Dad: Masters Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. 50 years of experience in the field.
Brother: Electrical Engineer with specialization in chip level design.
Me: English major

Who of those three do you think got Skype working when Dad and Brother wanted to talk?

I can't reply on Twitter to this tweet because I'm supposed to be professional over there. But I needed an outlet to point out that the last thing a strip club probably wants is a soft opening.

Well, wasn't expecting that. I'm headed to Vegas in June for a business seminar.

Cause it's more about getting work done than enjoying the comforts, gonna try out the Quad. We all know what happened last time I was there, back when it was the Imperial Palace. According to my sources (the Internet) the casino is completely transformed. The rooms are... not. And, yeah, I couldn't resist. The Delux Luv Tub room was free* so I booked it.

Don't know what this is going to do with my August trip. As of now, it replaces it. If this seminar does what it promises, I'll have the money to go in August too, but probably not the time.

*For all values of "free" that include their shiny new $10/night resort fee.

Not entirely sure I'm wild about the blog I'm linking to, but this is an interesting piece of urban overhearing.

My favorite part:
Guy #2: Hey Charlie, you thinkin what I’m thinkin?
Guy #1: I was for about half a second then it got weird and I started thinkin about somethin else instead.

1.3mil views and eight months and I'm only seeing this now?

How did I miss this?



Especially love Janice Dickinson, Willam Belli and Shangela as the Evils (let's face it, Janice was always more drag queen than anything else).

The mashup aspects are well done, too.

It is likely that Francis I is the last Pope to be installed who will be older than my parents.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio is three months older than my father, for the record. We do not, of course, discuss my mother's age.

I am 40 years old. I am rapidly approaching 41.

It's time to make some serious decisions about my life.

Up to this point I have lived with my parents.

It is time for this to change.

So anyone who is thinking about setting me up on a date or introducing me to someone in the future, I no longer live with my parents.

My parents live with me.

Things not to yell at your father while the African American cleaning woman is working in your home:
I don't want the brown one, I want the white one!

There is significant discussion about Pope Benedict XVI's decision to take the tile of "Pope Emeritus" and continue to wear the white Papal cassock rather than revert to his, for lack of better term, Christian name, take the title "Emeritus Bishop of Rome" and go back the black garb of a Catholic Cardinal.

The implications appear to indicate that the former Pope will continue active participation in Vatican governance, perhaps undermining the leadership of the new pontiff, whomever that might wind up being.

I am deeply disturbed by the stunning lack of give a shit I can bring to this issue.

It's not a good sign for a musical when you get home after the theater and the song running through your head is from an entirely different musical ("You Can't Stop the Beat" from Hairspray for the curious).

It's also not a good sign when the conversation on the way home is about who you ran into at the theater rather than anything about the play (my father's cardiologist, again for the curious).

That Catch Me if You Can was an evening of unremarkable theater is probably self evident at this point.

You know the story. You know how it ends.

They prettied it up with some nice dancing and singing, but nothing in the musical is all that inspiring.

The themes of fathers and sons, right and wrong and its odd take on the virtue of industry were all given heavier weight and better treatment in the book and movie that inspired the musical. The light entertainment of a musical wasn't flashy enough or memorable enough to make the transition to the stage really worth it.

The one image I'm left with is the parable of the two mice that the main character's father tells him. Two mice fall into a jug of cream. One gives up and drowns. The other simply won't give up and keeps treading cream, in effect churning. He keeps it up until it turns to butter and then just climbs out.

That's the point of the whole play. As long as you keep churning you'll eventually get butter.

It would have been nice if that were true.

Alas, there's a lot of churning and very little butter to be found.

I'm fat, 40 and alone at home on Valentine's day watching Animal Planet's Too Cute!, but I can't seem to get very upset about it.

In entirely unrelated news, according to my doctor's office I've lost eight pounds.

Recently Randy Milholland, author and artist of the webcomic Something Positive got into a bit of a Twitter dust up with some elements of the MRA community.

While the details of the beef are complicated and uninteresting unless you were following the whole thing in real time, it did get me thinking about the encroaching attitude of victimhood among those who enjoy the most privilege in our society.

My LJ bio proclaims me the ultimate minority "I'm the only non-smoking, lefthanded, six foot, 340lb, gay observant Jew in the world. There are other lefthanded, six foot, 340lb, gay observant Jews, but they all smoke; they would have to." And all that is true. I'm Jewish. I'm gay. I'm overweight. These things affect how I am treated in our society. They affect how I am perceived.

But I am always aware of several other things I also am. I am American. I am middle class. I am educated. I am white. I am male.

All of these things also affect how I am perceived and treated in our society.

The masculinists engaging in the conversation had a broad variety of what it was they were advocating for or complaining against.

It's easy to dismiss the guy who's only real issue seemed to be that abortion is legal so that must mean men are disadvantaged. So we will.

But a strong undercurrent of the arguments for the necessity of the masculinist point of view was some variation of "I'm not a rapist so my behavior shouldn't have to take into account a woman's concerns for herself and her safety."

I have never touched a woman sexually.

I'm pretty sure the only women I've ever kissed have been members of my family (and not all that many of them. We're not a kissy family, particularly on my father's side).

And even I know that when I and a woman get in an elevator alone I don't talk to her until she talks to me.

I know that unless I know a woman fairly well, I keep a certain physical distance from her in conversation until she crosses that boundary.

I know not to loom.

I know that I don't touch a woman unless she's touched me.

I know that I do not approach women in dark or unpopulated areas.

I know that when a woman taller and broader than I am asks me to walk her to her car I don't make fun of her (this was a lesson I had to learn the hard way. Not trying to say I'm perfect ;) ).

I know all these things because I know I live in a privileged state that the women I encounter, no matter their wealth or power or success, do not enjoy.

Being assumed to be a potential rapist until a woman gets to know me better isn't just the price I pay for the privileges I enjoy. It's the direct result of the existence of those privileges and the abuses of them by many who've come before me.

Is it fair to me that I have to adjust my normally outgoing personality to accommodate the evils of people I never met and who certainly did not act with my approval?

Why is that even the question? Better to ask why I should feel that my desire to impose my presence and personality on another is more important than that other person's discomfort with it?

One of the most dangerous elements of privilege in our society is the absolute certainty of so many who enjoy it that it doesn't exist.

It's after 5:00am in Israel and I can't sleep.

I got some sleep, about three hours or so, but now I'm up.

The trip so far has been something of a disaster.

The snow in Dallas meant the plane had to be de-iced before we could be cleared to take off for Frankfurt. This meant a two hour delay, which would have been ok since we had a three hour layover in Frankfurt.

Except that once in the air a passenger had a seizure and we we landed in Boston for her to be taken off the plane for medical attention. This added another two hours to the flight which meant we got into Frankfurt an hour after our flight to Tel Aviv had already left.I

At some point in the two legs of this particular journey, we were served dinner, and informed that only five kosher meals had been put on the plane and ours were not on their list. We should have verified 48 hours before the flight that our kosher meals had been ordered. We did verify. In the 72 hours before the flight we verified it twice. Being told "well, there's nothing we can do about it at 30,000 feet" not only doesn't take the sting off, but makes it quite a bit worse.

I get that flight attendants at this point have no power within their organizations to do anything to make a passenger's experience any better. Encouraging them to admit it to passengers is a really bad idea.

We were told there would be American Airlines agents at the gate area to help us navigate our connecting flight options. By the time Mom and I got off the plane, those agents had evaporated (or as far as we're concerned were never there).

We went directly to the American Airlines ticket counter to get whatever information we could. We were rather curtly told that we had been booked on the next El Al flight to Tel Aviv, which was scheduled for ten hours after our original flight, which meant we were looking at nine hours in the airport. Of course, since a combination of weather delays and medical emergency was responsible for our predicament, the airlines offered us nothing in the way of comfort or compensation. Lufthansa has a lounge for handicapped passengers in the airport and since they appear to run the wheelchair service we were afforded the opportunity to stay there. As an experience, not any better than sitting in the main terminal.

I'm

trying

to

find

some

way

to

explain

to

you

the

monotony

of

sitting

in

an

airport

handi-

capped

lounge

for

nine

hours.

I just can't come up with anything.

We eventually get to the El Al desk to find out that American Airlines had taken possession of our tickets, and that while we were booked on the flight, there was no way to check us in.

This after weeks of being told by American Airlines whenever we called in to check anything about our trip that the tickets were owned by El Al and American could do absolutely nothing to change them, even refusing to discuss seating on the American operated flight to Frankfurt.

In addition, it appeared that American had booked us on two earlier flights without telling us. Also, no one seemed to know where our bags were and it was unlikely we'd see them once we got to Tel Aviv.

After some herculean keyboard banging, and a couple of phone calls the El Al ticket agent was able to take possession of the Vienna to Tel Aviv portion of one of the tickets American had neglected to tell us about and turn it into a Frankfurt to Tel Aviv ticket. We were still pretty sure none of our luggage would be joining us on this trip.

Once we got to Tel Aviv we encountered the only real complaint I have with El Al in all of this. Their handicapped assistance really just failed us. While there was an electric cart to take us from the gate to passport control, there was no wheelchair to take my mother through the cavernous baggage claim hall and customs.

But back to the luggage. I went directly to the lost luggage desk and reported had transpired. The agent there quickly, efficiently and cheerfully (this is closing in on 3:00am local time at this point) stepped me through the process. She told me which baggage carousel our flight's luggage was on, but seemed quite sure I wouldn't find our luggage there.

And she was mostly right. There was one bag. The bag I'd packed with stuff my brother had had sent to the house and things my mother and I were bringing for the kids. The only thing in it belonging to my mother or myself was the bag she hangs off her walker I had hastily stuffed in it right before we checked bags back in Dallas.

As of well over 24 hours since we touched down, we still have no idea where the rest of our bags our and when or even if we'll ever see them again.

So it's after 5:00am in Israel and I can't sleep.

Dad: It's a circle fuck

Me: No, it's either a clusterfuck or a circle jerk.

That moment when you realize you just posted the word "clusterfuck" online someplace that rhymes with "Race Cook" and much of the elder generation of your family has access to it.

It drives me nuts when someone says "I need to _______ in the worst way!"

Not that "I need in the worst way to _______!" is all that much more acceptable.

Me: There's a definite chance I'm going to kill her tonight.

Dad: Who?

Me: There's any other "her" I might be killing? Yeah, it's Tiny's mom. We're pulling a Throw Momma From the Train. No one will ever suspect.