Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Blogswarm For Pam Spaulding
A Word About Our Sponsors
For some inexplicable reason, after a low point in the middle of the summer, web traffic at this blog has recently gone up to about 3000 visitors per week from our usual average of 2000 visitors per week and advertisers have started to notice. Currently I run ads from the Gay Ad Network, MSNBC political ad network and two blogads channels: Gay Blogads and Gay Political Blogads.
We had a huge traffic spike right around election day (interestingly the day AFTER, not the day before) and so are currently running four ads simultaneously. This is very cool but not something I expect to happen very often. I'm not even making enough from advertising to pay for the amount of time I spend on the blog, but it is better than a sharp stick in the eye.
Please support the advertisers on MadProfessah.com!
Celebrity Friday: Dean Hamer
MadProfessah, with scientist Dean Hamer
Last weekend I attended the Out To Innovate conference as a panelist and moderator; it was held at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on October 10th. Organized by NOGLSTP, the national organization for gay and lesbian scientists and technical professionals, the conference is the LGBT's community response to President Obama's Educate to Innovate initiative.
Dean Hamer, the author of the famous Science article "A linkage between DNA markers on the X chromosome and male sexual orientation" which demonstrates that sexual orientation has a genetic component, gave the keynote speech at the Out to Innovate conference during lunch.
Afterwards, he graciously agreed to take a picture with me.
Afterwards, he graciously agreed to take a picture with me.
Double Rainbow in Los Angeles
Los Angeles Scorching Hot (Record 113°!) Today
The official temperature in downtown Los Angeles was 113 degrees, the hottest ever since records began in 1877. That's a full seven degrees hotter than the previous record for September 27th set in 1963.
The National Weather Service it has only ever been over 100 degrees 3 other times in downtown Los Angeles.
Sunday Succulent: Astrophytum capricorne
Astrophytum capricorne
Today's Sunday Succulent is Astrophytum capricorne, not Astrophytum ornatum, which it can be mistaken for. My husband (the cactus and succulent expert) describes it as:The skin of the cactus is patterned with fine, white tubercles which give it a rich texture, like exotic animal skin. The spines are long and curved. The flowers on this individual are lemon-yellow with a red throat.
Sunday Succulent: Echinopsis cinnabarina
Echinopsis cinnabarina
08/08/08 2 Years Later: We're STILL Married
August 8, 2010 12noon: celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary with a brunch at an East Hollywood restaurant called Square One Dining.
VitaminWater Is Declared A Scam!
OMG! Vitaminwater has been ruled to be a marketing scam by a federal court. This is very sad to me because I love drinking Vitaminwater! I like the "dwnld" and "XXX" flavors. I never believed the "health claims" but I figured that it was better than drinking juice or Gatorade.However, the Center for Science in the Public Interest points out that each 20 ounce bottle ofVitaminwater has 32.5 g of sugars. There is no Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of sugars, but official guidelines indicate that a good goal is at most 40g of sugars for someone who has 2000 calories per day.
The CSPI sued Coca-Cola over the claims the company makes for Vitaminwater and a federal judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit.
By including the suggestion that the product will “keep you healthy” or “help bring about a healthy state of physical and mental being” alongside such statements, the quoted language implies that the nutrient content of vitaminwater may help consumers maintain healthy dietary practices. I conclude, therefore, in light of the language and context in which they are used, that the statements on the “defense” and “B- Relaxed” labels constitute implied nutrient content claims which use the word “healthy.” Such claims are in violation of violation of FDA regulations because . . . vitaminwater achieves its nutritional content solely through fortification that violates FDA policy.
Hat/tip to Joe.My.God
MadProfessah Meets Markos of DailyKos
One of the amazing aspects of Netroots Nation is that you never know who you'll run into. Right before Senate MajorityLeader Harry Reid spoke on Saturday, I ran into DailyKos.com founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga and he took this picture with me. Netroots Nation started off as the annual get together YearlyKos, a gathering of like-minded people who used the Dailykos.com site to share idea and form an online progressive community. DailyKos.com is one of the biggest blogs on the Internet, getting hundreds of thousands of hits per day, nearly 4 million hits per week. Markos is now a best-selling author and frequent television commentator but he is still very down-to-earth and it was an honor to meet him.Pretty cool, eh?
Thanks again to Mike Rogers and the Citizen Journalist/ Blogger Initiative for the financial support to attend the conference for the second year in a row. Next year it is in Minneapolis!
Netroots Nation 2010 Las Vegas: #lgbtnn10
MadProfessah is attending Netroots Nation 2010 in Las Vegas this week July 20th-24th thanks to financial support from Mike Rogers' Blogger Initiative. The Twitter hashtag for LGBT coverage at Netroots Nation is #lgbtnn10.
Yesterday I attended the LGBT confab for Netroots Nation attendees where some of the people there were Dan Choi, Fred Karger, Barbara McCullough-Jones, Gloria Nieto, and Phil Attey. There were also presentations from organizational representatives like Fred Sainz (Human Rights Campaign Foundation), Jason Perez Howe (Lambda Legal), Steve Hildebrand (Faith in America), Michael Crawford (Freedom To Marry) Heather Cronk (GetEqual). Since I'm on the board of Immigration Equality, I represented that organization at the caucus.
Strangely, the Task Force had no representative.
Later on there were interesting discussions between the attendees on "ENDA" and "Immigration Reform" in one session and "Marriage Equality" and "HIV/AIDS" in the second session.
Thursday, after an eventful night (which I may blog about later involving a trip to a local Urgent Care Clinic!), I attended the three sessions:"Marriage Equality: Building a Movement Online," "Immigration Reform's Strange Bedfellows," and "How to Plan for Your Website Redesign"
New Look At This Blog!
Blogger recently announced an amazing, new blogger template designer that makes it much easier to change the look and feel of blogspot.com-hosted blogs.
I changed the look of MadProfessah.com to a 3-column look yesterday. What do you think?
I'm still looking for help in designing an official banner.
Google (Docs) Has A Draw Program!
I needed to produce a document for an elementary school math festival I am participating and organizing on Friday in Glassell Park. I don't really know how to use any Draw programs and I am not "artistic" at all but the above diagram I literally created in 15 minutes in Google Docs. I heard about the program from my husband but you can read more about it here. You simply "Insert Drawing" and you get a wonderful graphical interface which is very intuitive to use.Thanks, Google!
Tax Day: Thank You, President Obama!
Today is April 15th, the day for Americans to file their 2009 tax returns. Like 98% of American households, my federal taxes for 2009 are lower than they were for 2008, thanks to the President Barack Obama tax cuts!Thank you President Obama!
VIDEO: Craig Armstrong and Liz Fraser's "This Love"
The following song is one of my favorite songs of all time, "This Love" by Liz Fraser (of Cocteau Twins fame) and Craig Armstrong (who mastered many of Massive Attack's hits), from the album The Space Between Us by Craig Armstrong.
19 Years Ago Today I Fell In Love: January 12, 1991
On Saturday January 12, 1991 I met my future husband for the third time--it was our first date. We walked along Venice Beach and talked and talked as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean and then went back to his place, which was (conveniently!) just a few blocks away. This was during my first trip to Los Angeles when I was visiting my sister and I was leaving the next day to go back to graduate school in upstate New York. The smooth talker convinced me that since he lived so much closer to the airport, I should spend my last night at his place, and not my sister's. We drove over to USC and got my luggage and returned to his place to "play boggle." (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)19 years later we are registered as domestic partners with Occidental College (May 12, 1995), the City of West Hollywood (March 22, 1996), the state of California (January 14, 2000). We are also civilly united in the state of Vermont (August 8, 2000) and legally married in the state of California (August 8, 2008).
As people consider the legal arguments over whether gay people have the right to marry in a courtroom in San Francisco, I wanted to put the somewhat esoteric discussion down to what it means, in practical terms, for real life gay people who are (and have been) living their lives right now.
I listed all the documents that we have entered into to demonstrate that these are the legal hoops that gay people have to go through to maintain our relationships against an unrelentingly hostile and unsupportive world.
It all started 19 years ago, today.
I love you, Dean Elzinga!
3,000!
This is the 3,000th post of my blog since I started posting regularly in January 2005. I'm in grading hell today, so probably not much more blogging will happen today until much later in the day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
