Photo Credit: David via Compfight

Justin and I just got done with our interview with the Québec Immigration official and while we were not granted the CSQ we were also not rejected. We were told that our French should be at an intermediate level whereas it is at a basic level currently. Also, we have traveled to Toronto but have not been to Montreal as well. We will hear back in two weeks on her decision.

In the meantime I am already making preparations to join Alliance Français in Chicago and go through an intense course in June to begin classes in July.

Maurice Sendak, most famous for his children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” has passed away yesterday.  Enjoy some great Steven Colbert videos of him below.

Maurice Sendak Part 1

Maurice Sendak Part 2

Photo Credit: Trey Ratcliff via Compfight

In one week from now Justin and I will be in New York City with a Québec immigration official in order to determine if we will be admitted to the Quebec Skilled Worker program and if we will be issued a CSQ (Quebec Selection Certificate).  We have been working a year toward this goal and are working hard to make final preparations and studying.

Wish us luck!

Belgium decided to prove why driving and texting is bad by making a fake modification to the driving test for some new drivers.  Take a look at the results in the video above.

Another marriage equality video, this time from a campaign in the UK.  They’re not real soldiers but it’s still a great short video.  The best way I can sum it up is to quote the commenter cjmandrake ”Remember, they aren’t special rights, they are equal rights.”

Last night Justin and I went out to eat a fantastic dinner at Burger King (sarcasm is heavily intended) because we didn’t have much to eat at home and wanted to get something fairly quick.  Before we left I was transcribing some of a Pimsleur French lesson and Molly decided she’d try her hand paw at it after we left.  Follows is the last two lines I wrote and then what she typed out for me.  How she typed a “é” which requires three key presses, I will never know.

Maintenant essayez de dire ‘but our older son.’
Mais, notre fils aîné.

“““““““““““““““ré1 `qftttfctw
wATAA F
FFFFX7

The SparkyCam site has been broken for a while but will soon be updated to show one pic per day.  Here are a few pics of Sparky recently that have showed up to show how photogenic he can be.

Today was the 2012 Purdue 5k Challenge. Mom and Dad came down to watch us run. This was Justin’s first official 5k and he did great! My bib was #888 and I finished 179th place with a time of 24:03. Justin was #1392 and finished 433rd place with a time of 28:14.

A quick post to say Happy Birthday to Molly! She is 17 years young today but doesn’t look a day over 5. She’s still just as lively as ever.

I finally watched a video today that has been swirling around the Interwebs about Caine’s Arcade.  It’s a cardboard arcade made by a 9 year old boy in L.A.  He made it in the front of his dad’s used auto parts store out of various pieces of cardboard laying around.

It’s a great video and gets back to how simple things should be in the world.

http://cainesarcade.com

Last night Justin and I participated in the 2012 Relay for Life held at the Purdue Armory. Justin went to man a booth through his fellowship and was selling cupcakes and gave supplies for people to make cards for children at Riley’s hospital. I went to walk the relay and enjoy the activities.

Justin and I were there for about three hours, two of which I walked. According to my readings that it takes 1 minute 46.1 seconds for one lap and each lap is 0.07 miles. So, that works out to about 5.75 miles of walking last night. Not a bad little workout.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the new iPad and how good the screen is.  As someone who has had the iPad 2 for a while and is now a new iPad owner, the difference is subtle but quite nice.  Everything is crisp and much easier to read.  Graphics have no visible pixels.  It is similar to having changed from the iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4 (or iPhone 4S).  Having said that, there are a few times so far where the higher-res screen isn’t nice.  Like looking at those wallpapers I’d downloaded previously that are now pixellated, or looking at apps that haven’t yet migrated to the new Retina display.  However, these are minor and the pros outweigh the cons.

So, how clear is the new screen?  Well it’s really not something you can actually tell via a picture of them side by side – you really have to see it in person.  However, the images below should help to give a perspective.  The images below are of the first 250 pixel x 250 pixel block of the screen.  First is the iPad 2, second is the new iPad.

As my wallpaper is a grid you can easily tell it is four times the size of the original (double in both the x and y axis equates to four times) iPad and iPad2 resolutions.

© Caucas' - Flickr

It seems like wedding bells are ringing for everyone anymore.  In October I had accepted a job offer after applying to a different part of Purdue University.  In talking with my new manager, I found out she wasn’t married but had been with her boyfriend about as long as Justin and I have been.  Apart from one or two other people, she was the only person other than Justin and I that I knew who wasn’t married.  This past week that changed when she married her boyfriend and became husband and wife.

While I am happy for her and she is one of the most friendly, cheerful and inspiring people I am happy to have met, I’m sad that Justin and I are once again the only un-married couple I know.  I don’t want much – I just want to make official our love for each other in the eyes of the government.  I want to enjoy spending the rest of our lives together in the security that we are able to enjoy all the protections and responsibilities afforded by marriage.  I do not understand why this is such a bad thing and why I still cannot marry the person I love.

Quick post with a video from Carly Rae Jepsen called Call Me Maybe.  Pretty good song and the video is so cool.  The last 30 seconds are the best though.

Today Apple and it’s team of executives headed by Tim Cook announced the new iPad. No number, no “HD” for this one, just “the new iPad”. This will surely cause some confusion, so let’s just all agree to call it the third generation iPad shall we?

As time has gone on, I have found myself using my iMac and MacBook less and less and instead relying on the iPad more and more. As a matter of fact, this post is being written from the WordPress app for iPad. Apart from needing to find a comparable replacement for Quicken for the iPad, I have almost no real use for my laptop anymore. My desktop is also becoming more a storage and media server as I rarely touch it as well. It is a late 2007 iMac.

So, Justin and I talked about it and I went ahead and bought the new iPad. Once it comes in, Justin will get the iPad2 so he can have all the features of a tablet as well. I also bought the camera connection kit so I can hook up my camera and transfer the pics to the iPad. This will allow me to completely negate the need for a laptop or netbook at all when traveling. All I need now is an app for tethering to my DSLR and I’ll really be a happy camper! Looking forward to March 16th when it will supposedly arrive.

I’ve not listened to Howard Stern much, but the video below is just great.  It’s an audio clip from his radio show.  His reactions to the anti-gay bile being thrown around is inspiring.

(c) Darrell Godliman - Flickr

The United States was originally founded because the first immigrants from Europe were searching for freedom from religious persecution.  How fitting that today, hundreds of years later, their descendants are persecuting others based on that same religion.

As a gay man, I have limited rights in the country I was born despite the fact that the founding fathers declared America a land where “all men are created equal.”  Of course, as we all know, this doesn’t apply if you happen to love someone of the same sex.  Or so the religious extremists would have you believe.

While the scenery is changing and gradually improving for same-sex couples in America, there is still much work to do.  I will write another post with more details another day, however items such as immigration rights are among the most depressing rights denied to same-sex couples.  Heterosexual married couples are granted 1,138 rights and responsibilities nearly all of which are denied to same-sex coupoles who have gotten married in the few states which have passed full marriage equality as these marriages are severely crippled due to DOMA, a federal law which defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.  This backwards-thinking law denies almost all of the 1,138 rights and responsibilities regardless of whether you are legally married but happen to be same-sex.

For Justin and I, the largest issue is immigration rights.  Although we have been a committed couple for almost four and a half years and despite the fact that we have countless finances proving this and have co-signed on the purchase of a car, the rental of a house for over two years and have many friends and family who can clearly see the love we have for each other, I have zero rights to be able to keep Justin in this country.  The only way he can legally stay is if he happens to find an employer who would sponsor him for a visa and eventually a green-card.  This to me is a serious crime and a major slap in the face.  ”All men are created equal.”

Unless you’re gay – then you can be stepped on and constantly told, by those who previously nurtured and cared for you before they knew you were gay, that you are nothing and that you deserve no rights – that your love of someone of the same sex is a “choice.”  Yes, you are right.  I prefer to be treated as a second class citizen.  I prefer to have rights ripped from me daily.  I prefer to be turned away when doing something as simple as donating my blood to those in need.  I prefer to be constantly told by my state and my country that my love for another man is disgusting and despicable.  I prefer to be called a “faggot” when walking down the street with my boyfriend.    I prefer to be unable to keep the person I love in this country.

On December 30th, we traveled to the Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Center which is only 6 miles north of downtown Chengdu.  Once you arrive it is a quiet serene contrast to the rest of the city.  We went with several of Justin’s relatives and the album below is but a small sampling of the many photos taken.  It was a great day and I’m very glad we were able to go see China’s National Treasure – the Giant Panda.

Justin and I are a few days in on our China 2011 trip.  While this trip is the first for both of us to get to visit Shanghai, the main purpose of this trip is two-fold.  One, it has been three years since he was able to visit his family so it’s time to reconnect and visit with some of his friends.  Second, and pretty importantly, he is coming out to his mom and dad and by extension (and inevitable gossip) – the rest of his family.

Well, two days ago – the day after we arrived and the same day his mom arrived in Shanghai – he came out to his mom.  It actually went great and significantly better than it would have for most Chinese guys.  Typically the families are very set in their ways and would usually think about how it’s bad for the family’s face or possibly that they would not have anyone to take care of them when they’re older.  His mom however is very forward-thinking about was great with the news.  She asked tons of questions such as if I was what had turned him gay.  He re-assured her I wasn’t and that he had crushes on other guys long before he met me.

Since we are all an extended family now, we have roamed around Shanghai together and with various friends.  The pictures below are from the past few days and are a small selection of the places we have been.

Recently, Corey went ahead and actually built himself a CNC router.  This is something that is amazing to me as it is a huge amount of work and takes a lot of great thought to get all the components and make them actually work together.  I don’t have any pics of the router itself, but it’s quite impressive.  A few weeks ago, Corey made me a beautiful pencil box out of a piece of mahogany that I had.  I think I’m going to keep it as-is as I think it looks great without anything else done to it.  View the pics below to see the quality he is able to produce with his CNC router.

There’s a new ad going around in Australia which is probably the best ad for marriage equality that I’ve seen yet.  The video is embedded below, but it shows normal life and how two people want to just be together.  It’s not about gay marriage, people.  It’s about marriage.  Such a simple video, such a powerful message.

As promised, the winner of the recent Shutterfly Contest I held is being announced via this post.  As luck would have it though, I had received several codes but a family member ended up not wanting a code, so the other two entrants are both winners!  Everybody wins!  :-)

Congrats to Lori and Jaime and thanks to everyone for sharing your favorite holiday memory.  Thanks also as this was the first “contest” I’ve ever ran and although only three people posted, it was still fun!  Details and promotion codes have been sent to the winners via email.

Today marks the day the Earth’s population surpassed 7 billion.  While there have been more than 7 billion people on earth, never before have so many people been alive at one point.  Want to know where you fall on this chart?  Visit the BBC to find out.  The above info-graphic is my place in the world.

© Salbjörg Rita Jónsdóttir, Flickr

The last few nights I’ve actually remembered a few dreams that I’ve had. I used to remember some of them years ago, but haven’t remembered anything after I woke up for many years now.

While I was a bit sad about that, it did give me the ability to sleep through an entire night and wake up with a fresh mind. The past two nights though have been different. Last night I had a dream that was creepy, but Tuesday night’s dream is what stands out in my mind.

In the dream, for some reason I was in a computer store to have my netbook repaired (I work on computers all the time and would very rarely ever take it in somewhere and let anyone else work on my technology). I’m not sure why exactly, but somehow it came up that I was gay and the woman at the counter refused to give me service. It’s pretty vague since it was just a dream, but she said something to another person about how she made her views clear at their last meeting. The other person tried to comfort me since I was visibly upset and I was about to cry. I think it was about then that I woke up.

While that’s pretty disjointed and lacking lots of details, it was an interesting insight into my subconscious. At least consciously I don’t consider myself to be discriminated against at least in certain areas. I definitely am by the government, but never have been by any business or by any specific person. It showed me that although I am not being actively discriminated against personally, that it is still something very much on my mind and was eye-opening.

Dreams provide us with an opportunity to let the mind run free with ideas uninhibited by moral, ethical and social constraints. They allow us to explore anything and everything that could possibly be thought of. While sometimes these can he horrifying or amazingly magical, sometimes they are instead about ideas that hold much deeper meaning and, if you’re lucky enough to remember those dreams once you’ve woken up, can show you more about yourself than you ever realized existed.

It’s coming up on that time of the year again to start preparing for Christmas.  This year will be especially busy as we will be going to China again.  It has been nearly three years since we’ve gone back and seen Justin’s family.  There is a lot of preparation work that goes into a trip of this scale along with time and money.

It’s good then that Shutterfly is making other parts of Christmas preparation easy for me.  I will be using them again this year for our yearly Christmas cards.  The first year we had used Kodak but used Shutterfly last year which I think was a better experience.  Last year we went with the design on the left.  While I was happy with the design, etc I was highly disappointed in how the pictures of Justin and I turned out but it’s my fault, not Shutterfly’s.  We had very bad lighting conditions and I hope that this year’s card is of a higher quality.  A few things helping in that area are that we know more now about how to use our Canon camera but also we now have a nice flash for it that should help.

Shutterfly has an almost overwhelming number of possible designs and layouts available, from their holiday cards to Christmas cards to standard photo Christmas cards.  While there is a very large number of cards available, it is quite nice to have such a range of choices and not have to do the same thing every year.

Last year Shutterfly sponsored my cards and supplied them for free which was quite nice.  This year they have taken it to the next step and supplied me with an extra promotional code for 25 free cards for my readers.  Post in the comments below what your favorite holiday memory is to win.  I’ll pick a winner at random on November 19 and contact you via email.

*Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by an offer from Shutterfly for 50 free holiday cards for bloggers.
*Contest Rules: Contest is open from October 25 2011 – November 18 2011 11:59PM.  One winner will be picked at random and will receive a coupon code for 25 free cards from Shutterfly.  Shipping/tax charges may apply.

Today the world has lost a truly visionary man with the passing of Steve Jobs. I wish his family the best during this difficult time.

More information can be found at Apple’s site

On Tuesday Justin and I went to a show in Leob Playhouse called “Amazing China.”  It was sponsored by the Confucius Institute.  Students from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Symphony Orchestra performed various pieces of music from traditional chines songs to the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean.  The slideshow below is a taste of the dance and songs from the show.

Watch the video above to see a great interview from Sirius XM radio host Michelangelo Signorile interviewing North Carolina GOP State Sen. James Forrester.

It’s a great interview where Signorile brings calm reasoning to a State Senator who can’t answer simple questions and bring horrible bias and extremely bad incorrect “facts” to introduce legislation to ban same-sex marriage.

Yesterday marked the official repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the US Millitary’s ban on gay servicemen from serving openly.  Above is a video produced by one military man (Randy Phillips) coming out to his Dad yesterday.

http://www.towleroad.com/2011/09/airmanfollow.html

After work today, Justin and I went to the College of Engineering 2011 Graduate Dinner.  I (of course) went as Justin’s spouse and you had your choice of either Chick-Fil-A or Jimmy Johns.  Why would I possibly pick Jimmy Johns when I could have me some delicious Chick-Fil-A?!

After eating we snagged ourselves a picture with the coolest cow in the land!