Please fasten your seatbelts…we are moving to a higher altitude…starting next week 34,000 feet will be moving to a new space. I will be sharing my comments on politics, annoyances, sex, the news, and other gay blogs at an altitude of 35,000 feet. Please check out the new location and let me know your feedback and thoughts before I make this a permanent change. Feel free to bitch, complain, and destroy my ego.
Today I am on the tail end of a business trip to Chicago and will be heading home to New York. I have been here for leadership track training. The main concept of the training is that we can apply principles in psychology (i.e. 6 Basic Human Needs) to our diplomatic communications skills. One of the topics that came up late in the day yesterday was the behavioral differences between men and women. Now – I will preface this by saying that all 40+ participants beside my self are from the Midwest (and many of them seem to be come from a conservative background). The last half hour of the day was promoting the generalizations about how men and women behave differently. As a gay man, I found that most of the descriptors for the women described me better. I also thought the way it was presented was both sexist and overly generalized. And yet the instructor continued to call on all the men to support his theories (i.e. we grunt when we walk past one another in the hallway, while women want an emotional connection and so will have short dialogues to catch up). At one point we were talking about how a handshake can tell a lot about a person’s psychology and the instructor made mention that a light handshake from a man could mean “You know,” the instructor said with a wink wink - while all his squirrel trainees laughed. We had started the class with a question about what key questions are we constantly asking ourselves internally – and for many in the room they answered “what are other thinking about me.” Finally, someone asked the instructor what his questions was – and he said that he had grown beyond the “what do others think of me” question to “how can I use the gifts God gave me to be a better person.” BARF – I think he needs to start thinking again about what others think of him…
It’s a pretty simple concept – you drive your car at less than 11 miles per hour into a box. You then wait for a light to turn green and you move forward in traffic. Sometime later in the month you receive an email notification that your bank account was charged for the privilege of driving on that stretch of road. Obviously I am very simply describing E-ZPass. About 2 months ago I received a violation notice in the mail that I had gone through an E-ZPass lane without a device. I should state here that my E-ZPass device is plastered to my car’s windshield and has rarely ever moved. On this particular day I had used it three other times in addition to the “pass” through this toll plaza, and so it was a suspect charge from the start. I looked up my account online which notates every transaction with the date and time of the “pass”. I noted that I had been charged for the “pass” just seconds after the violation claims I went through the plaza without it. I called E-ZPass and they told me to send a copy of the statement (because they claimed they had no exposure to any accounts) to them to clear it up. I did that and was told that this would clear my incident. Yesterday I got home from work and received another violation on a different day – but this time stating that this was a second violation (and so I can assume the first one was never handled properly). It was the same toll plaza and same lane. I looked online again and sure enough I was charged for the toll 2 seconds earlier than the violation on my statement. I will call them once again and try faxing my evidence this time and see if I get a different result...one that is E-Z'er.
Naturally most of the readers of blogs are also bloggers themselves. It is estimated that in the US alone (although most statistics are still not scientific, as it is difficult to track them all), there are some 3.3 million blogs being updated daily. On that note, this week I would like to start reviewing some of my favorite blogs. Mind you that these are blogs that I read every day, and so they are top notch to begin with. My evaluation is my individual bitchy judgment. If you are hurt by my opinion of your blog…I’m sorry in advance and hope that we can still be blogmates. :) I would like to begin today at the top of my blogrolling list with “A Guy Site”. This adult blog (must be 18 or older to view) whose author is located in Dallas Texas never disappoints. He brings in plenty of hot imagery available from various movies, advertisements, television, and gay porn. Every now and again he will discuss something of topic, such as Hurricane Rita, but your visit to A Guy Site is nothing more than a great find for the hottest gay and straight boys in the blog world and plenty of links to see more (at a cost of course).
35000 Foot Ratings out of 10 possible points in each category:
Smart 2 Updated 8 Hotties 9 Funny 4 Design 6 Advertising v Content 3 Bitchy and Honest 2 Unique 5
As a professional in marketing I sometimes wonder what the hell some of these Product Managers are thinking? What kind of market research was done to come up with the airflow mouse now available with a built-in fan that gently pushes air through systematically designed pores on the outer shell to cool your hand? Are there lots of people out there clicking so fast that they are sweating up a storm from their hands? Is there an arm deodorizer that goes along with that thing? Or is this simply a ploy to reach the geekdom of cool techno toys to say “I have it...and it blows!”
Just a quick update – the 747 is nearly built – paint is taking a bit longer to dry than I originally anticipated and we are in the touch up phase. The bottle of wine was lovely and the trip to Target was a success. I have been looking to get a cushy tub mat and found the one I was looking for (and we got some lovely new bath towels). I have started reading the good book and it has wrapped me in already. I certainly can relate to his upbringing (even though it was on the other side of the world) as a youngster who knows he is “different” and is looking to connect with someone – but that’s a longer entry when I have some time. I also enjoyed the massages we received yesterday afternoon. The therapist was very strong and she was able to release tensions and toxins in various areas of my body that have never been tapped so intensely. Hmmm…that leaves one last task to complete the weekend. Here is one more picture from my collection to enjoy! Have a wonderful Sunday.
