Andrew's Wandering Mind

10446.0

My, how time flies. Here it is 6 months and a day since I've moved to Jacksonville. My first visit back to the Great Thawed-Out North is coming up in a week when I go visit people in Minneapolis & Sioux Falls at the end of June. Hopefully, my old house in Sioux Falls hasn't had its basement collapse due to the excessive amounts of rain there. Over the last 31 days, the SF airport has recorded more rain than the average of May, June, July, and August COMBINED. That makes for a record breakingly wet stretch, beating the 95 year old record.

Ok, enough geeky numbers things. My manager still likes me at work. This is a good thing, and she keeps finding new projects for me (and others on her team, to be fair of course) to work on. "Here's a little more rope," she says, "now don't hang yourself."

South Dakota declined to pass the civil unions ban from my February posting. Yay for us winning one! Ten people testified at the committee meeting against the law, and only two for it. After the testimony, one of the legislators, fighting back tears because of a close connection to his lesbian sister, whom I know, said "We did the right thing today by killing this bill, but I think it's interesting that we did it because we might accidentally discriminate against some straight people. I think we all need to go home and do a gut check tonight about the things we've heard today." I jumped around the room for joy when the decision went through, and I did so earlier as well when one of the ladies from The (GLBT) Center in Sioux Falls read from a letter that I'd written to the legislators from my district in Sioux Falls. She wasn't sure what she would was going to say as she approached the microphone, was quite stressed, and was passed the letter by another woman we both know, "here, just use this, it's good." And it was good, to the point that her part of her impassioned testimony made it into the AP article published in the Argus Leader, the Rapid City Journal, and the Advocate (national GLBT news) magazine, calling the bill "mean and divisive."

This weekend is St Augustine's Pride, which is where I last year got the Rainbow Flag that now flies at my old roommate's house in Sioux Falls. Weekend after that, Minneapolis.. Twin Cities Pride.. the 4th largest such festival in the US. Good times.

Be good, and if you can't be good, be safe. :-)