Category: Uncategorized

I try to avoid politics on this blog, so feel free to skip this one.

With Rob Portman announcing support for gay marriage, folks on the left argued that it’s not cool that conservatives only support causes that impact their direct family.

While that is a partly fair criticism, I think that reasonable people will see that if your entire background tells you that position A is correct, a child driving you to position B should be viewed as personal growth, not hypocrisy.

I just read this post by Andrew Sullivan, an openly gay Catholic (talk about reconciling contrary positions). He had been supportive of Portman in the first place. The money quote for the first post (sic) is

My mother had the only response an Ohio mother of a gay son could possible have: “Holy shit.”

So we move forward (or backwards depending on your position). Again, I disagree with some folks on the left who argue that people should have had empathy in the first place and realized how they’d feel if their son/daughter was gay. It just doesn’t work that way. We are human.

Though from a political standpoint, it is somewhat concerning that no Senators’ children can come out of the closet and announce that they are poor. Politically, that explains a lot.

Well I’m not. But you may be. At least according to this, which pretty much matches my opinion entirely.

My office is very close to a well known mural in Dumbo, Brooklyn. It used to look like this:

ArtInfo.com actually puts this area in the “20 best spots to see street art in NYC”.

It’s not a particularly scenic building. It’s just a garage. My office actually looks out on the “No Parking 24|7” part.

I walk past the mural every day (well, most days I scooter). Imagine my surprise when I saw this:

(my office window is second floor, one to the left of the “b”)

No one was happy about it. Though it turns out that “bright” is a commentary on the mural itself. The garage is going to be demolished to make modern housing, so this is a brief final tribute to the mural.

Sad to see the mural go. And I’m not looking forward to construction right outside my window…

We are so blasé. Seriously, that title should require a qualifier, “not really”. Except we are really doing this.

Honestly, it’s a bit ridiculous. We dropped a one ton rover on an exact location on Mars. This rover is moving around the planet, sending real time images back to us. The damn thing is tweeting. Oh, ho hum, we have something on Mars. What about Kim Kardashians’s baby?

Holy crap, do you realize how hard this was to do?

Anyway, for those bored with the above, please don’t notice that we will be analyzing rocks drills on Mars. Rocks on Mars, how boring… 

Chris Christie Goes Postal on GOP Leaders

Danielle was supposed to have her birthday party on the Saturday after Sandy at Chelsea Piers, this very cool sports complex on the West side of Manhattan. Unfortunately, being on a pier, it was heavily damaged by Sandy so her party had to be postponed.

They reopened last week and her party was rescheduled for today. I asked one of the employees there how bad it was, and she said the entire gymnastics area was under 6 feet of water. It had to be completely replaced.

So getting to this in a month, is pretty impressive:

The party was great. A bunch of 10 year old girls jumping around and landing in those huge pits. Tori got to be the one little girl at the party. Here’s Tori vaulting into a pit:

Danielle being fancy and doing a handstand into it:

Random trampoline action:

Being launched into the pit by one of the instructors:

And the whole gang in the pit:

Amusingly, because they were brand new, Danielle said the foam squares smelled like pistachios. And needless to say, a great party. And all the instructors there had T-Shirts that had on the back “Sandy Who?”.

Not to make light of those still suffering from the effects of Sandy, but clearly the folks at Chelsea Piers did a great job getting the place back in shape.

Monday 9:00 PM

Our cable went out taking the internet with it (what would we do without smart phones?). It’s getting pretty crazy in Brooklyn. Check out this picture of the carousel at Brooklyn Bridge Park in Dumbo.

For perspective, the carousel is in the back right of this picture:

Hilarious, courtesy of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Because he treats listeners as if they were smart.

Read this entire article. Doesn’t matter if you love or hate Bill Clinton. It discusses the difference between “clarifying” (Clinton) and “over-simplifying” (most political speeches). And it makes the interesting point that sports talk radio debates are actually a good example of this.

Just read it…