james nunn | blog

Earlier today, like much earlier, I was out and about with a few other people cleaning up trash around the City (as part of the Keep Frisco Beautiful campaign). It would have been nicer to see more supporters actually helping, and at one point I was thinking there were as many organizers as there were volunteers. Still, after our city’s mayor said a few words (to the press), and then said a few more words (to more press), he actually said a few more words (to us) and set us free to go grab some trash. (I make this general observation about the length of time it took to set us on our way, as I am not a morning person, and I’d been there for an hour already.)

Anyway, I worked with a couple of other members of Frisco Pride, and collected a good amount of trash. At first we thought the area that we were assigned was too small (for the amount of time — we were wrong). Sadly, most was related to building materials (like plastic wrap, etc.), and got me thinking that I hope the city actually gets a clean up bond or payment from any builder (chances are this is not the case). After an hour and a bit of cleaning up, we finished, and I came home to wash the morning off me.

When I got home, I found this on the answering service (we have Vonage, so it emails any messages left as WAV files *snicker*):

[audio:cbm_jul29.mp3]

That was Chris (who is in Florida for the weekend). Isn’t that sweet? He might be a litle off key, but I loved it Of course, the safe thing about Chris being in Florida is I can post this just to prove how sweet he can be

(Side note: the little WordPress audio tool/plugin can be found here.)

The 9th Annual Equity and Diversity Conference – titled "The Power of Inclusion!" – will be held on February 24, 2006 at the University of North Texas, Denton. A pre-conference workshop will be held on February 22 & 23, 2006.

Presenters at this year’s conference include:

Yolanda King (the daughter of the late Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) will be presenting "Open My Eyes, Open My Soul: Discovering the Power of Diversity" on Friday, February 24 @ 7:00 PM.

Read Yolanda King’s biography here.


Also presenting will be B. D. Wong who will be discussing "Change, Hope and Equality for Asian-Americans" on Thursday, February 23 @ 6:30 PM. (This presentation is free to attend.)

Read B. D. Wong’s biography here.


More details of the conference, including how you can attend these presentations, is available through the UNT’s Office of Equity & Diversity webpage.

Politics & The Supreme Court: These past few days have not actually been busy, per se, just been keeping a low profile on the blogging front.  Wondering why?  The Samuel Alito confirmation hearings are on, and in an effort to educate myself about some of the doctrines that influence this country's supreme law, I've been watching CSPAN as they show uninterrupted coverage of the hearings.

Yesterday, I drifted in and out as I did laundry.  For those not in the know, our dryer joined the holiday takers just before New Years, and it finally got fixed yesterday. So from the moment it returned refreshed, until dinner I did 7-8 loads of laundry (this is just for myself and Chris), and in between I watched the Alito hearings on CSPAN.  Of course, I learned quite quickly that my education on the constitution and the man himself was not going to improve greatly.  Unlike the Roberts hearings, this one is full of Republicans filling their allotted time with praise, and “don't you agree” statements, and the Democrats actually pussy-footing around asking real questions.

Today, it got a little more interesting as Senators Kennedy and Specter exchanged some heated words over whether Specter had received a letter sent from Kennedy.  (365Gay.com reports that this interaction occurred just after Kennedy read some material from promotional material from a group that Alito was a member of while at Princeton University that was hateful towards gays and women.) Senator Kennedy released details of the letter later today, and Senator Specter acknowledged that his office, not himself personally, had received Senator Kennedy's letter (all up, Specter looked a little worse for wear given his comments).  I guess we have a few more days to look forward to.

Health & Fitness: In other news, I ordered an elliptical machine last week, and it's due to be collected tomorrow.  I've decided that I need to loose weight, and as I'm not a runner, jogging is out of the question.  I've been using an elliptical at Collin's gym, and liking it, so this was a huge factor in my decision to get one in the house.  I'm looking forward to getting it, as when the semester starts it will be a little more difficult to find time to get to the gym at either UNT or Collin, so I'm hopeful that having it stare at me in the morning, or afternoon will enthuse me to hop on for 30 minutes each day.

Travel: It appears we are going back to Key West in June – YAY!  Tonight Chris, Bobby, Ian & I sat down for drinks and snacks to discuss the travel plans, and more details will be coming soon. Oh yeah, this is happening while we are there.

Education: One week to go until classes start, and I'm actually looking forward to this happening. I'm not looking forward to the trip to Denton at least twice a week, but I keep telling myself that it's only for a couple of years (urgh, did I really say that).  I at least know who is leading my classes, and have heard back from two of my professors (one is the same one I had during fall).

Community: Our HOA is in the process of fixing some parts of the fence that run along the back of our home, and its taking forever.  I'm still not convinced that this is the best use of our funds, but I'm resigned to the fact that its probably in the best interests of those homes that it affects (we are not one of them).  The HOA has its annual meeting next week, and sadly this will be the first one I will miss. It appears someone who follows in my footsteps will be running for the committee I am on, so that should make for an interesting 2006.

Entertainment: Ian has been kind enough to loan me the full season one of Desperate Housewives, and my friend Damir (link), has all the episodes for season 2 on his DVR – so in a week or so, I hope to be up to speed on what is really happening on Wysteria Lane.

Next, I have to catch up on what is happening on the blog-o-sphere.  More posts later.

Today our community has a master naturalist coming to visit to provide additional assistance with the creek area in the neighborhood. I'm hoping this is close to the last step before we start.

The rain started yesterday. Not sure if this groundhog thing actually is real or not, but he saw his shadow – which is meant to mean that we will have six more weeks of winter. Coincidence? Not sure. Enough people believe it, so maybe there is an element of truth in it.

Classes are going okay. I've still to do work on one class, and behind in another. I've been so busy with the HOA – trying to make as much headway as possible in the quickest amount of time. I'm thinking this is a positive thing, so I keep moving forward.

SGA is on a downward spiral. I'm not sure what more I can do to get people motivated. I'm not motivated, so maybe that would be a good starting point.

WOW! After what seemed like three hours, I'm full. We just helped celebrate a birthday with a friend of ours and the venue was a Japanese Hibachi bar. The “show” was awesome, and the food unbelievably good

The Advocate has a very cute boy on the front of the February 4 edition, and he's a ballet dancer (Marcelo Gomes) … one can only wonder what that would be like *smirk*

Finally got my classes sorted out, and I'm enjoying Yoga. I managed to enrol in an English course (online) and I'm feeling really good about my workload for this semester. I've got a professor that I'm not thrilled with for one class, and he's already starting to show how pompous he can be – let's hope I survive.

I was appointed to the HOA Board this week, after one of the elected members decided to stand down. I'm still not overly happy with the treatment that I received at the annual meeting by some of the former board members, but thankfully a number of neighbors have been very supportive and now understand the issue with the previous board and myself – so I think it ended up being a good thing. Tomorrow we sort out the positions, and I'm hopeful that I will convince my fellow board members that I would serve as a great president – fingers crossed.