Pre-vacation post

Cristina and I are going on vacation this week. We're leaving tomorrow afternoon after her poetry meeting and driving up to Orlando to meet up with her parents and brother's family. Doing Disney for a couple of days - staying through the night of the 4th. Then we're going to Key West for the 5th through the end of the week. At least that's the plan right now. It could change.

I need to buy a camera, new tires, windshield wiper fluid, a cooler, and some nature bars.

I'll post when I get back - hopefully with lots of pictures because hopefully I will have gotten a new camera. Yay!

How Do I Love Thee?

Of course, for Cristina - always.



And think not you can
Direct the course of love,
For love,
If it finds you worthy,
Directs your course.
~ Gibran Kahlil Gibran ~

==============================

The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable.
~ Victor Hugo ~

You know you are in love
when you see the world in her eyes,
and her eyes everywhere in the world.
~ David Levesque ~

I love you - those three words have my life in them.
~ Alexandrea to Nicholas III ~

I love thee, I love but thee
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold
And the stars grow old.
~ Willam Shakespeare ~

I have loved to the point of madness;
That which is called madness,
That which to me,
Is the only sensible way to love.
~ F. Sagan ~

It's not that I can't live without you,
It's that I don't even want to try.
~ Source Unknown ~

Love is like swallowing hot chocolate
Before it has cooled off.
It takes you by surprise at first,
But keeps you warm for a long time.
~ Anonymous ~

Of what does a true kiss consist? Ambrosia on which gods subsist, Tremendous heat which sun can't give, God's heaven in one moment lived.
~ Abelardo Subido ~

My love for you is a journey;
Starting at forever,
And ending at never.
~ Anonymous ~

Once in awhile,
Right in the middle of an ordinary life,
Love gives us a fairy tale.
~ Anonymous ~

True poets don't write
Their thoughts with a pen...
They release the ink that flows
From within their heart.
~ Anonymous ~

The only things in life you regret,
Are the risks that you didn't take.
~ Anonymous ~

You love simply because you cannot help it.
~ Kim Anderson ~

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself
But if your love and must needs have desires,
Let these be your desires:
- To melt and be like a running brook
- That sings its melody to the night.
- To know the pain of too much tenderness.
- To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
- And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
- To wake at dawn with a winged heart
- And give thanks for another day of loving;
- To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
- To return home at eventide with gratitude;
- And then to sleep with a prayer
- For the beloved in your heart
- And a song of praise upon your lips.
~ Gibran Kahlil Gibran ~

Love me without fear
Trust me without questioning
Need me without demanding
Want me without restrictions
Accept me without change
Desire me without inhibitions
For a love so free....
Will never fly away.
~ Dick Sutphen ~

The greatest weakness of most humans
Is their hesitancy to tell others,
How much they love them
While they're alive.
~ O.A. Battista ~

Accept the things
To which fate binds you and
Love the people with whom fate
Brings you together
But do so with all your heart.
~ Marcus Aurelius ~

Love, you know, seeks to make happy rather than to be happy.
~ Ralph Connor ~

Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.
~ Thomas Fuller ~

The greatest tragedy of life is not that men perish,
but that they cease to love.
~ W. Somerset Maugham ~

True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.
~ Honore de Balzac ~

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage.
~ Lao Tzu ~

Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another's heart, or its flame burns low.
~ Henry Ward Beecher ~

All love that has not friendship for its base,
is like a mansion built upon the sand.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox ~

Love is the emblem of eternity: it confounds all notion of time: effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end.
~ Germaine De Stael ~

Come live in my heart, and pay no rent.
~ Samuel Lover ~

True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.
~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery ~

In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities.
~ Janos Arany ~

The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvellous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life.
~ Sir Hugh Walpole ~

Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.
~ Erich Fromm ~

Love does not consist in gazing at each other
but in looking together in the same direction.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery ~

You come to love not by finding the perfect person,
but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.
~ Sam Keen ~

What we need to know about loving is no great mystery. We all know what constitutes loving behavior; we need but act upon it, not continually question it. Over-analysis often confuses the issue and in the end brings us no closer to insight. We sometimes become too busy classifying, separating, and examining, to remember that love is easy. It's we who make it complicated.
~ Leo Buscaglia ~

From every human being there rises a light that reaches straight to heaven. And when two souls that are destined to be together find each other, their streams of light flow together, and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being.
~ Unknown ~

Love is an act of endless forgiveness
A tender look which becomes a habit.
~ Peter Ustinov ~

But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.
~ Sir Walter Raleigh ~

When you love someone, all your saved-up wishes start coming out.
~ Elizabeth Bowen ~

Love is strong yet delicate.
It can be broken.
To truly love is to understand this.
To be in love is to respect this.
~ Stephen Packer ~

iPod headphones for sale

I bought the Logitech wireless iPod headphones a few months ago...they are fantastic, but I realized that I just don't use them. So, I figured I'd pass them on. I paid $60 for them (after the rebate, not including shipping), so if I could get $50-60 I'd be happy. Let me know if you're interested.

For a picture, click here.

Two articles

1) New US Church Leader Says Homosexuality No Sin

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly elected leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on Monday she believed homosexuality was no sin and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.

Jefferts Schori, bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was elected on Sunday as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church. the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She will formally take office later this year. Interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual.

"I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.

"Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."

Jefferts Schori's election seemed certain to exacerbate splits within a Episcopal Church that is already deeply divided over homosexuality with several dioceses and parishes threatening to break away. It could also widen divisions with other Anglican communities, including the Church of England, which do not allow women bishops. In the worldwide Anglican church women are bishops only in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. The Robinson issue has been particularly criticized in Africa where the church has a growing membership and where homosexuality is often taboo.

Jefferts Schori, who was raised a Roman Catholic and graduated in marine biology with a doctorate specialization in squids and oysters, supported the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican history. The 52-year-old bishop is married to Richard Schori, a retired theoretical mathematician. They have one daughter, Katharine Johanna, 24, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and a pilot like her mother.

Asked how she reconciled her position on homosexuality with specific passages in the Bible declaring sexual relations between men an abomination, Jefferts Schori said the Bible was written in a very different historical context by people asking different questions.

"The Bible has a great deal to teach us about how to live as human beings. The Bible does not have so much to teach us about what sorts of food to eat, what sorts of clothes to wear -- there are rules in the Bible about those that we don't observe today," she said. "The Bible tells us about how to treat other human beings, and that's certainly the great message of Jesus -- to include the unincluded."


2) Pentagon Lists Homosexuality As A Disorder

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position. The document outlines retirement or other discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities, and in a section on defects lists homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders.

Critics said the reference underscores the Pentagon's failing policies on gays, and adds to a culture that has created uncertainty and insecurity around the treatment of homosexual service members, leading to anti-gay harassment.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Jeremy M. Martin said the policy document is under review.

The Pentagon has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of service members but requires discharges of those who openly acknowledge being gay.

The Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, uncovered the document and pointed to it as further proof that the military deserves failing grades for its treatment of gays. Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the center, said, "The policy reflects the department's continued misunderstanding of homosexuality and makes it more difficult for gays and lesbians to access mental health services."

The document, called a Defense Department Instruction, was condemned by medical professionals, members of Congress and other experts, including the American Psychiatric Association.

"It is disappointing that certain Department of Defense instructions include homosexuality as a 'mental disorder' more than 30 years after the mental health community recognized that such a classification was a mistake," said Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass.

Congress members noted that other Pentagon regulations dealing with mental health do not include homosexuality on any lists of psychological disorders. And in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday, nine lawmakers asked for a full review of all documents and policies to ensure they reflect that same standard.

"Based on scientific and medical evidence the APA declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973 - a position shared by all other major health and mental health organizations based on their own review of the science," James H. Scully Jr., head of the psychiatric association, said in a letter to the Defense Department's top doctor earlier this month.

There were 726 military members discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy during the budget year that ended last Sept. 30. That marked the first year since 2001 that the total had increased. The number of discharges had declined each year since it peaked at 1,227 in 2001, and had fallen to 653 in 2004.

MySpace

My time on MySpace is over. It bothers me. I say I keep a page just to keep up with people I knew from school, but in reality, I exchanged one or two messages with them and never talk to them anymore. So, I posted a bulletin informing people of my decision. I left my email, cell #, and blog address. We'll see how many people care. Either way, that means I won't have to put up with the irritating page editors anymore.

Vacation in Victoria

Cristina and I spent a few days in Victoria, BC in the beginning of May. I had some stuff to do for work, but we came in early and were able to relax and see the sights a bit. It was so mellow and fantastic - we are definitely going to go back.



View of the sunrise from the plane

We got in on Tuesday and mostly just stayed in at Brentwood Bay - it's a long flight, so we ate dinner and just relaxed.


View of the Bay off our balcony


Art in the room


The bed and bathroom


The shower was cool


The TV and minibar


View into the bathroom


The fireplace - not much warmth, but tons of ambiance

Wednesday morning we got up fairly early and headed down to Victoria. It's a very walkable city, so we had the taxi drop us off at the Empress Hotel and we were able to strike out from a place of strength. We wandered around the Bastion Square Festival of the Arts and made mental notes of things to buy. Coincidentally, May's featured artist is Those Great Little Books - we bought more than a few things there!


Us setting out for Victoria


The Empress Hotel

We wandered up the street and found Artina's, a jewelry store that features native and local artists. We saw a couple of necklaces we liked but decided we didn't really need them. (I ended up going back and buying them, but that's later.)


Necklaces I got at Artina's


My necklace, on

Next we visited Starfish Glassworks. You could go upstairs and watch them making the glass pieces. There were quite a few egg-shaped things, so Cristina was happy. There were some beautiful pieces, but all pretty expensive, so we managed not to buy anything there. We also found a LUSH store! Spent about half an hour in there but decided we'd come back at the end of the day so we didn't have to lug anything around.


Glass egg


Another glass egg

By this time it was about time for tea at the Empress - our reservation was at 1:45, so we hoofed it on over for our taste of the Empire. It was fantastic. Their Empress Blend tea is AMAZING. They give you a little tin to take with you when you go - we're about to order more.


Me waiting for tea


A teacup


A history of tea


Ah, the goodness of tea

On the way out we took some pictures at the arbutus tree on the grounds.


Pretty tree


Me at the tree


Me again


Cristina at the tree


Cristina leaving the tree


We couldn't decide exactly what these were - so I call them watch-trees

We walked around a bit more and got some quite interesting pictures. We also went back and made our purchases at Lush and the artists' festival.


Map of Victoria Island


Sidewalk artist


Disney-centric Cristina saw a hidden mickey...


Palm Beach has alligators. Victoria has bears.

By this time we were tired, so we decided to head back.


In the taxi on the way back


Cristina was obsessed with taking pictures of me in the taxi

We managed to see the sunset that day.



Next day got up fairly early and had breakfast, then went over to Butchart Gardens. It was tulip season, so we got some good pictures. However, disaster struck that day - we asked a passing man to take a picture of us in front of the peace doves. He did, and then handed us back the camera...and dropped it. From his hand. Onto the concrete. The LCD screen was cracked and the lens makes funny little pathetic sounds when you push the power off and on. He said he was really sorry again and again, and then offered to take a picture with my film camera. Um, no, thanks. The thing was, he didn't offer to pay for it. If he had, I'm sure we would have said no anyway - but still, it would have been a nice gesture. He did take a picture with his camera and offer to email it to me, which he did. That was good.

So...we spent the next hour or so at the gardens, Cristina feeling bad because it was her camera, me feeling bad because I asked the guy to take the picture. We had to go back to the hotel because we had a massage scheduled at 1:00...thank God. It was awesome and got us feeling all better, we realized that although it sucked, what was important is that we are together and healthy and all that. Luckily, I got some other people's pictures of the gardens.











It was tulip season, in case you couldn't tell.

Had an amazing dinner at this place called Cafe Brio. Greg and Silvia are the owners and they are FANTASTIC. I highly recommend it if you're in Victoria. There were these asparagus spears wrapped in bacon...I still dream about them. And little lamb chops.




Those yummy lamb chops


Me after many drinks

The rest of the week was work stuff, but we did have a fantastic dinner at Dock 503 on Friday night. They had a jasmine creme brulee that I could have eaten gallons of. Cristina left on Friday night and I left on Saturday night.

More beautiful pictures can be seen at Flickr. Here's a few:


Brentwood Bay proper


Brentwood Bay in the negative


Another picture of the Bay


Bald Eagle's Nest


Victoria's Purple Starfish


Arbutus Tree


More Bay


Calmish water


Prawns. Yum.


A little starfish

That's all, folks!