Reasonably Logical

I just got back from the MBLGTACC 2008 conference. I was there for four days, but the time went by so fast it felt more like four hours. I spent a lot of time volunteering at the conference, and the rest spending as much time with as many friends as possible. Being back in Champaign reminded me just how much a part of me wishes I hadn’t left.

The end result of everything else I was doing was that I only attended two workshops and one of the three keynotes. Probably my lowest attendance record ever for a conference. Well, that happens when you spend all your time running the thing. (For once, I was not in charge. Yeah!)

And on that note, let me offer my congratulations to the conference committee and in particular the co-chairs. Nicely done guys! Now go get some sleep. You all need it.

The Wednesday evening (Feb 20, 2008), there will be a total lunar eclipse visible from the United States. I, for one, plan on going out to see it if the weather isn’t too ugly.

For more info, check out this NASA page.

Update (2-25): And - of course - I forgot. Oh well, 2010 isn’t *that* far away.

I recently ran across two articles (see below), which reminded me why I post so little personal information online. Once you’ve put something online, you’re trusting that site to both respect your privacy and be secure enough to protect your information. Given all the counter examples, why on earth would you believe either, much less both, of them? My general policy is that I don’t post *anything* online - be it a blog, facebook, or my bank’s site - which I can’t handle becoming public information. This means I don’t post a lot of personal stuff on this blog; I never include my full address in Facebook, and I damn well don’t use my social security number online more than I *absolutely* have to. (That last one is a whole ‘nother issue. Let’s leave it for now.)

On a related note, I did not “come out” on Facebook until I was okay with people finding out. I’ve never really gotten the whole come out online, but not in real life thing. Do your friends not read your Facebook profile? — Sorry, sorta off topic

How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free
By MARIA ASPAN, New York Times
Published: February 11, 2008

The Anonymity Experiment
During a week of attempting to cloak every aspect of daily life, our correspondent found that in an information age, leaving no trace is nearly impossible
By Catherine Price, Popular Science
Posted 02.08.2008 at 12:51 pm

The study below reveals the (not surprising) fact that social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace are actually one of the safer forms of online interaction for kids. Er, duh? I’m glad to see the research is now available to support what I’ve long suspected.
Let’s just see how the talking “news” heads deal with this. Somehow, I suspect they’ll find a way to twist this too. They always do.

Kids safer in social networks than chat rooms
By Darren Osborne
February 06, 2008 03:26pm

I can’t believe it, but I somehow managed to miss mentioning Mandy’s award in my post about Creating Change. Mandy Carter - my co-facilitator for our “Out (or not) in the Child Welfare System” workshop - was honored by NLGTF for her forty (yes 40) years of activism in social justice movements. Mandy has been active in the African-American, women’s, and GLBT rights movements for significantly longer than I’ve been alive. Congratulations once again Mandy.

Our workshop co-conspirator Pauline Parks, wrote a wonderful blog entry over at VisibleVote08 about Mandy’s award and her acceptance speech. I’m mentioned in passing about halfway through the post.

Pauline, Mandy, Matt Foreman and I took a picture following Mandy’s acceptance speech. Unfortunately, my camera was still setup for outdoors and the shots didn’t come out at all. Once I manage to get a copy from Mandy or Pauline, I’ll post it here.

This rant comes from trying to close Firefox after it hung on a bad website today. (Let’s ignore the fact that a *website* managed to crash my browser for now.) I - of course - immediately opened task manager and tried to end the process. Then I waited, … and waited … and then waited some more. What IDIOT decided that a close command - via the task manager no less - should be a polite request to the application to shut itself down?! Damn it, I want that thing gone. Now!

Then things just go worse. After waiting 1/2 an hour in the hopes that it might _finally_ close, I tried to shut down Windows and reboot. End result: nada. I ended up having to manually remove power and force a restart.

The worst part about this little saga is just how often it happens. Someone at Microsoft needs to get the idea that applications are NOT to be trusted and that the user should be obeyed.

I got back yesterday evening to notice that two workshops I submitted for OurTrueColors - a statewide conference for LGBT youth here in Connecticut - had been accepted. Guess I don’t get to relax just yet after all. At least I have until March to prepare.

Workshops Accepted:

• Exploiting Technology to Further Your Mission - All new material
• Managing Your Volunteers (and Yourself) - I did this one before at ILGBLTQSACC 2007

This post was written while at Creating Change, but was not posted until the Tuesday after.

All I can say is “Wow!” I’m sitting at a table outside the ballroom where the last plenary at Creating Change 2008 just finished. (Though this won’t be posted until I get home probably.) As always, Creating Change exceeded my expectations and renewed my passion for working around GLBT rights issues. Here were some of the highlights for me:

• For the first time ever, I co-presented a workshop at Creating Change. Mandy Carter, Pauline Parks, and I have been working together since the last Creating Change in Kansas City to prepare two workshops to continue the conversation around LGBT adoption and foster care. Pauline’s workshop was Friday morning; I haven’t had a chance to discuss it with her yet to find out how things went. Ours though was an absolute success! We had expected somewhere around 10-15 people to show up; Instead, I’d estimate we had closer to 35! (I haven’t actually counted the signup list yet.) I’m still high off the experience two days latter!
• I mainly focused on fundraising and organization building workshops this time around. As a result I picked up a lot knowledge that I hope to be able to apply back home. On that front, I ran into the interim executive director of the LOFT – the LGBT center in Westchester County, NY which is not far from where I live. We’re going to talk more, but it sort of sounded like there might be a lot more opportunity for me there than I had previously thought. More on that later though.
• I ran into so many friends and acquaintances it wasn’t funny. While it was definitely different to be attending by myself without a whole crew of other students, it was still a lively and enjoyable time. I had a chance to see some folks – based in Michigan – that I haven’t seen for two years or so. Also had a chance to catch up with a few of the kids from Camping.OUT - which I staffed for - two years ago. I barely recognized most of them; they’ve changed so much.
• This was year 4 for me at Creating Change. Next year – which I definitely plan on attending – will be in Denver, Colorado. That’ll be number five for me.

Next on my conference agenda will be MBLGTACC 2008 at UIUC in two weeks. This is going to be one heck of a busy month!