Reasonably Logical

Yesterday, I attended Our True Colors - a LGBT youth conference for the state of Connecticut. Overall, I enjoyed the conference, but there were a few things that didn’t work out quite as expected. For one thing, my black North Face jacket went missing part way though the day. I’m a little irritated by that, but well what can I do about it now?

I left Stamford at about 6:30 am, stopped at work to pick up my camera, the drove up to University of Connecticut (UConn) where the conference was being held. After checking in, I went to part of the opening keynote before heading out to prepare for my first workshop of the day.

My first workshop was entitled “Exploiting Technology to Further Your Mission.” In retrospect, that was probably a bit abstract for the age of the people attending. (Most high school, with a few college students, and middle schoolers thrown in) Partly as a result of that, and partly due to the day’s low attendance (see below), I only had one person attend. Worse, he was not involved in any form of LGBT organizing or activism; he’d been drug along by a friend. We ended up talking about the uses of technology in Physics since that was his major. Overall, it was a complete bust.

My second workshop (title “Practical Lessons in Managing Your Volunteer Base”) was more of a success. While I only had one person show up again, this time the attendee was there because they were actually interested and needed advice. I ran through my slides, but since it was just the two of us it really became a one-on-one counseling session. That type of one-on-one interaction is what I enjoy the most about teaching, so for me the workshop was more than worthwhile.

As I mentioned before, Saturday attendance was way down. Apparently, most of the high school students come up on Friday when they can come on school field trips. Also, the weather was bad (rain + some snow) so a lot of people stayed home.

After my workshops were over, I went to a workshop on over the counter drug use by LGBT youth. It was absolutely fascinating. This was a topic I knew next to nothing about, so I learned a lot from the workshop. I’ll probably be putting up a separate post about that workshop.

After the last workshop, I volunteered to help with the cleanup. I worked with one other volunteer to take boxes from the conference and load them onto the truck to go back to the True Colors office. Once we got mostly through that, we broke for a few minutes to eat a quick dinner. (It was during dinner that my jacket walked off.) After dinner & hunting for my jacket a bit, I got recruited to follow the truck back to Manchester and bring the driver (Brian - the volunteer I’d worked with earlier) back to the conference. All told, that trip took about an hour.

After getting back, I spent a little more time hunting for my jacket and then checked out with the volunteer table to head home. (It was about 9:30 pm by then.) On the way out, I stopped to talk with a guy nicknamed “Dragon”. Turned out we had a lot in common - including our shared difficulties in social situations - so I was able to give him some hopefully useful advice. We ended up talking for about 30 minutes before I took off to head home. I got home around midnight, talked to Matt and some friends from work who were over, then crashed.

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.

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.

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!

Every year people ask me what I want for Christmas, so for this year I’m actually making a list. Items are in no real order.

• Small Travel Luggage (overnight bag)
• Book Gift Cards (Barnes & Noble, Borders or Amazon)
• Semi-dressy short sleeve shirts suitable for work (Macy’s gift cards work too)
• A nice (but not insanely nice) knife set for the kitchen
• Book: “The Complete Krav Maga”
• A set of practice gloves suitable for martial arts (Krav Maga)
• A set of driving gloves (knit or *flexible* leather)
• A reasonably complete tool set (nothing excessive, but quality is important)
• A business card scanner with OCR (must be compatible with Thunderbird)
• A donation to a charity I support. Good choices would be:
  1. The Point Foundation - I’ve been giving to them since I first started college.
  2. Sylvia’s Place in NYC
  3. ACLU
  4. Lambda Legal

Thought I’d share some pictures my father took of the lunar eclipse last night. I (almost) wish I’d stayed up to see it.

“Photo 1478 was taking at 2:50am.
Photo 1480 was taken at 2:56am.
Photo 1491 was taken at 3:35am.

All I’ve done is cropped the images a bit. I had a regular camera tripod, not a telescope with clock drive, so there is a bit of motion visible.” — My father

Well, I’ve now been living in the northeast for seven weeks and working for six. I’m slowly getting used to being employed full time. I finished up training two weeks ago and have just about finished up my first real projects. I’m working prety much nine-to-five and am really enjoying having weekends and evenings to myself. (No more homework, yeah!)

Its also finely sinking in that this is “home” now. I still miss Champaign-Urbana and particularly my friends there, but I probably always will. I will be going back to visit in early September though. One of my friends is getting married, so I’m going back for the wedding. One of the engineering career fairs happened to be the next week, so I’m staying for that as well.

I have been somewhat disappointed by how difficult it has been to connect with the gay community around here. The closest center is in Norwalk and I often find myself driving either to New Haven or New York for things. I’ve only made it to half a dozen events total. Given how involved I was in Champaign, I’m feeling kinda bereft. Hopefully, I’ll make more connections as I move forward.

Well, I start work tomorrow. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it since it is a massive life style change. I’ll be in training for the next five weeks, which will be sorta like college, but I get paid! After that, work starts for real.

I’m sorta mourning the end of my last summer break before grad school, but I keep reminding myself I’ll have other opportunities to get off and have some fun in the future. On the other hand, I’m eager to start and get into things. In other words, I’m kinda conflicted.

Background: For those I haven’t told in person, I just completed a move to Fairfield County, Connecticut and will be starting work as a software engineer with FactSet Research tomorrow.

Apparently, it is some kind of cost saving measure common through much of the northeast. There’s a point at which cutting costs just isn’t worth it. This stupidity is well past it.

BTW, got my new Connecticut drivers license today. Feels really weird not to have my California one any more. Though I have to say, getting the license here was a lot easier than I feared. One vision test (which I passed!) and I now have a license good for 7 years. My old license had to be renewed every two. Major improvement. Now if only I hadn’t had to wait 2.5 hours at the DMV to accomplish that.