Various updates about Iceland, LOST, and marriage
Posted: Thu, 15 May 2008, 14:29:21, GMT | 1696 views Share
I'm getting caught up in LOST, which everyone else that I know seems to watch. I'm in the middle of Season 2 at the moment, after spending several time blocks watching bursts of LOST for 6 or 7 hours at a time. Luckily, one of them was yesterday on a 9 hour London-to-Seattle flight (BA 1053). At the moment, it's about 5am in Seattle, I've done some mail for a while, and find myself sucked into having LOST running in the background as I do other random things. I was happy the Bellevue Westin let me change my breakfast order from 7:15 to 6:15. Only an hour left until coffee!
In other random news, the California Supreme Court will issue its final ruling today on whether or not marriage in the state includes gays and lesbians. It's particularly interesting from a few perspectives - obviously, it's hugely personal for me and Troy as an issue; it's also interesting because California has had some of the most progressive cities in vocal support of equal marriage. For example, San Francisco issued marriage licenses for a while before formally being ordered to stop the practice, even though they were aware that the licenses wouldn't be valid. San Francisco was even one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. But the case is also interesting in two other ways. First, if the court rules in favor of marriage equality, it could become a lightning rod for the Presidential Elections this year - throwing the issue back into center stage, where it does not need to be right now. I was hoping the issue could stay relatively quiet for a few years, and prove to everyone that the world hasn't ended since Massachusetts lets some couples marry. The fear is that the issue becomes divisive enough that there re-ignites a serious call to propose a federal constitutional amendment to write discrimination into the US Constitution. So, it presents a problem - do I hope for a "poor" decision right now that might be short-term painful, but heads off any long-term more permanent damage? Strategy isn't too easy to buy into when it's personal. So my verdict? Let's take the wins where we can, do the right thing, and deal with fallout as it happens. An alternative is that California might come back and say that while marriage isn't okay, civil partnerships "equal" to marriage must be available. I won't get started here, but I have strong feelings on why Civil Partnerships are not Equal to Marriage.
We had a team training event in Iceland last Thursday and Friday. Many people were able to have their significant others fly in to join us on Friday for the weekend, so that was a lot of fun. I'm also looking forward to a bunch of time in London now for both me and Troy, with no big work trips planned in the immediate future. Monday May 26 is a UK Bank Holiday, so maybe there'll be a weekend trip we can take somewhere around the UK with my new driver's license! I wound up joining the CityCarClub, which lets you rent a local car by the hour, parked in the neighborhood. The first rental was last week, and I took the car to the local Home Depot type story (B&Q), and bought a new living room ceiling light. It was quite exciting. After figuring out that I was trying to start the car from a stop in 3rd gear, things went smoothly. It was a little touch-and-go as I kept trying to start up in 3rd gear after each stop light. The traffic behind me wasn't too thrilled, but I sorted it eventually and was smooth afterwards. (In my defence, the stick was labelled weirdly; this was a clear case of poor user design.)