Thanksgiving

Jim & I went to Mammoth for Thanksgiving. Fortunately for me (and nobody else in the region), it was warm. All that the locals could talk about was when it was going to snow, how much it was going to snow, how much it snowed last year... It did actually snow the night before we left and the temperature dropped from the 60s to the 20s. Jim kept trying to convince me to try snowboarding, not knowing the depths of my resistence. Foiled again!

We stayed with his college friend Rena and her boyfriend (now fiancee) Robert. She made a huge spread including a divine, sugar-free chocolate rasberry mousse. Yes, it was both delicious and sugar-free. It had plenty of fat to make up the difference. Yum!

Probably the most interesting part of the whole trip was the ride through the Central Valley. That's the wasteland running down most of the middle of the state where the bulk of the nation's produce comes from. It is nestled between 2 mountain ranges making it the perfect cesspool of pollution from LA and industrial farms. You can't see very far because of the brown smog and the air smells horrible. Then you are treated to a bad taste in your mouth followed by a sore throat. All of this in a matter of 30 minutes exposure. It gives me another huge reason to buy local produce. That way I don't get food that feeds off the pollution and don't contribute to the transportation emissions.

We also learned that if you look at a map BEFORE the trip, instead of listening to your friends, you can shave a good 5 hours off the roundtrip drive. Luckily we learned this before we started our return journey.

The work update is that we laid off another person, our Financial Administrator. It all works out for the best because he didn't like the job and we were able to convince the old Financial Administrator to come back to run the now one-person department. He's awesome & we are lucky to have someone so knowlegable, trustworthy, and darn funny as we emerge from our brokeness.

Finally, we are venturing to Columbus for the holidays. We will be landing late on 12/22, going to Indiana for a couple of days then hanging in Columbus until New Year's Eve. So far the only other plans we have are on 12/27 so send in your Jodi/Jim requests now!

Lay Offs

Money is still very hard to come by at Pacific Pride. This week we layed off 2 more staff - our director of LGBT programs and our office manager. We are closing everying that we don't have contract $ to pay for because of short cash flow. It's a huge loss for PPF and the community. Hopefully in about a year we will have recovered financially and can start refilling these positions.

This is all a result of past problems before I got there, but I am still the fundraiser, so onward and upward!

Memphis

Jim & I just got back from a long weekend in Memphis. We were supposed to to to New Orleans for the Voodoo Music Experience, but you can guess what happened. The concert thing is actually really frustrating because after they moved it to Memphis they decided to split the concert between the 2 cities and only accept our 2 day concert tickets for one day in New Orleans. The show was amazing - we got to see Cake & Nine Inch Nails. What more could you want? The best part is that Jim's sister and brother-in-law, Suzie & Matt, live in Memphis. We got to hang out with them and stay for free. Former PIRGer Alex Kaplan is also in Memphis so we got to spend time with my dear friend. The return flight was very bumpy, but Adavan saved the day.

Our next trips are to Mammoth (I will not be skiing) and Yosemite for Thanksgiving to see Rena & Robert and Jim McKenzie, and then to Ohio for Xmas (dates TBD).

Jon Stuart is brilliant

This is the video clip of Jon Stuart ripping apart the Crossfire hosts. A must see!

New Boss

Today I got my 4th boss in 4 months. That doesn't sound exciting, but it is. We had one director leave, 2 interims, and now we finally have our new Executive Director. We are off to a good start already. The best part is she doesn't like her really cool, huge, wrap around desk ... so I get it! Woo hoo!

11/3/05 update - we don't have the $ to buy the boss a new desk so we are all stuck with the old ones. Oh well.

AIDS Walk

The AIDS Walk was 9 days ago, but it was so sureal that it's taken me this long to put my thoughts together. It was a rollercoaster, but turned out great. Now, I'm really excited for next year and starting to plan already. Mark you calendars: 10/06/06!

When I took the job at PPF, I was asked to be on 2 committees. Through a series of unfortunate events, we lost 3 key staff, and 3 people who were supposed to be running the thing. I stepped up to run the event since we had no one better. Even though I've never run a major event or been to the walk, I was still the most qualified person in the room. That should tell you a lot.

It's really easy to pull of the basics. We had (meager) files from past years plus some institutional memory to help out. The key was using the one major technique I learned at PIRG. You guessed it, phone banking. I put together a list of past sponsors and then called them until I reached them. This yielded $29,000 in sponsorship - half of what we raised on the entire walk in 04. Then I put together a list of past walkers and called them. Nearly 600 people agreed to walk and we got about 400 to show up. With the grassroots fundraising we did, plus the board pitching in we raised close to $125,000 (so far). Last year we raised half of that.

Next year is going to be great!

Kat

She's only temporary. I promise. We are fostering a cat who was rescued from Hurricane Katrina only a week ago. I get to name her, so she's Katrina. "Kat" for short. Now we have a Kat, a Kitty, and a Sweetie. However, I repeat, she's only here for a month. She's skinny, but not starving, and amazingly well adjusted. She's more chill than any other cat I've introduced to my 2 little monsters. Again, she's only here for a month.

Kat update: She's ADORABLE! And ADOPTABLE! She's having a great time playing with anything she can find, ignoring my cats' hissing, snuggling... I'm guessing that she's only a year old because she's so small and so playful. Who wants her?

Babies!

I have SO many friends who are pregnant or just had babies in the past few months. I guess it's the age. Here's the list:

Lee Anne in Australia
Jessica in Palo Alto
Rebecca & Michael in Washington
Chris & Kirk in Denver
Rachel in Ohio
Kris & Chris in Ohio
Mike in Ohio
Teri in SF
Doug & Faye in SB - due January 1
Dave & Terra in SB - due in January
Cory in SB - due in March
Heather & Deb in SB - due in May

I hope it's not contagious!

Oaxaca

My friend Juliette moved to Oaxaca (for you gringos, that's "wuh-hah-cuh") 9 months ago. I don't think she misses Santa Barbara very much because she keeps sending me photos like this.

Kitty & Sweetie!

Sweetie, the beauty queen & a new and improved 13 pound Kitty.

Goggle head

Before the 9/04 Endless Summer Vespa Ride. 100 Vespas take over Santa Barbara, amusing the locals and tourists alike. Endless Summer 05 is this weekend 9/24-9/25.

The job, the man, and the life

I got a new job in the city... 4 months ago I naively took a job that I thought would be a piece of cake. Who doesn't want to give money to the local gay group? It's the only game in town! Well, lo and behold, the only game in town is fraught (sp?) with financial problems, management problems, and PR problems. Let the drama commence! I'm running the AIDS Walk (I'm in charge, I'm not literally running. Who does that?) which is my first major event, plus I've never even been to the walk before. It's only 10 days away and it's going really well. We already have 50k in the bank, which is half of our goal, and we haven't even gotten the money from walkers yet!

I can't think of another good song line for the love life part... 1 month ago Jim moved in! I thought it would be the same as when we were spending every night together and paying double rent, but I'm pleasantly surprised that it's even more fun. We are making plans to stay in my old rental house, rip up the carpet and sand the hardwood floors, plus replace the overgrown rats nest of a hedge in the back to create a yard. For those of you not living in SB who think I'm crazy to do all of this work to a rental, it's near impossible to find affordable housing in the region. I have below market rent in an adorable house in an amazing location. It's totally worth the 2 weekends of work.

I'm not sure what to say about life, since the above pretty much encomasses it. I guess I could say that the flight of the 30 something crowd continues out of luxurious SB. I think there are 8 of us left. If you know someone between the ages of 22 and 60 in SB, let me know!

testing 123

My brother sent me an email announcing his new "blog" http://www.segalsaga.blogspot.com so I thought I'd have to do it, too. I have a lot of very important things that everyone must know, so why not!