Recent News
September 8th - Sharon Gets Published!!!
Woohoo! I am so excited for my wonderful wife! Today, issues of Red Magazine hit the British newsstands containing Sharon's feature article written about our relationship and her feelings concerning my transition! This was Sharon's first paid commission for a major glossy magazine, but I'm sure it won't be her last!
Red is a women's monthly magazine on the order of Cosmo and Marie Claire. Unfortunately, it is only published in the UK at the moment. As a result, I've scanned a copy of the cover and the article and posted them here for your reading pleasure. Now, listen folks, these scans are for US readers only! You all in the UK need to go out and buy your own copy! I figure if Red sees a significant jump in their monthly readership, they'll ask Sharon to write something EVERY month! *grins*
September 8th – The Bathroom from Hell
Ok, so we finally started the bathroom project. Just so you know, this is not the first time that we've tackled a bathroom redecoration. Because of this, you might be wondering if we have finally lost all grip on sanity. Who would willingly do that twice?!?!?
The truth of the matter is that we didn't willingly do this. Paul, the wonder contractor, took one look at the project and ran whimpering back to his truck. That's just how bad it is! We also called a plumber in the next town over, but they wanted to charge us 36 thousand dollars just to take our phone call. So, in the end we decided to head over to the local Lowe's hardware store and investigate doing the project ourselves.
Now, two days into the project, I realize that I should have let the plumber take my call.
You see, when we tore out the old tub and shower, we didn't just tear a hole in the wall. We opened a burning, gaping portal directly into the bowels of HELL! Plumbers, like the priest in the movie, "The Exorcist", are trained to deal with this type of supernatural event. Unlike the priest in the movie, they seldom get decapitated, gored, or stapled to the wall with gutter spikes. This is because plumbers have a secret weapon against the howling demons of the abyss.
Plumber butt.
When things start to get tricky down in the drain, a skilled plumber will just squat down and let their butt crack hang out the back of their pants. This sight is usually enough to scare Satan and his minions right back down to the ninth circle of hell!
Unfortunately, it doesn't work for the uninitiated. This morning, when the going started to get tough, I tried it myself. Sharon took one look and started laughing.
"Your thong is hanging out. You have a whale-tail!"
Suffice it to say that I won't be casting out demons any time soon.
September 3rd - Work Around the Cabin
We've been in our cabin in Southern Indiana now for about two weeks. Let me tell you, it takes a lot of work to turn a vacation rental cabin into a long-term residence!
As you all can expect, one of my first tasks was getting my computers up and running. What else is a geek like me to do? Well, I knew there was gonna be problems when I plugged in the webserver and felt 60 hertz coming off a piece of exposed metal! Not a good sign! What I quickly learned was that their wasn't a single properly grounded outlet in the entire place.
Ouch!
That initiated our first of many calls to Sharon's brother, Paul. Paul is a contractor who lives about an hour south of the cabin, and this guy can fix anything. No, I mean it. He can fix anything! Once, one of his kids got the croup. I saw Paul grab a roll of duct tape and a small tub of wood putty. He walked into his daughter's bedroom and 10 minutes later she was cured!
So, a couple of days after I called him, Paul showed up at the cabin with all the required kit to get my electrical whipped into shape. I let him do the climbing around in the attic, but I helped out by being his gopher and such. Hey! You wouldn't want me breaking a nail, now would you? After two days of solid work my office area had grounded outlets and I had a few motion lights installed around the outside of the house.
Those last were very welcome additions. It gets dark out here in the country! In London, a person never really experiences the dark. 24 hours a day, the place is lit up like a Times Square on New Year's Eve. But out here in the sticks, you can't see your nose in front of your face after the sun has set for an hour or two. It's now much nicer to be able to drive up to the house and be greeted with a warm, welcoming porch light.
The electrical and the lights behind us, I was finally able to get my computers sorted. You should be glad, because otherwise you'd be looking at a "URL not available" message instead of these witty recollections!
Ahh, but the work around the house is far from done. I just learned that the tub/shower enclosure is leaking like mad and will need to be replaced. I also have some interior lights that I need to get installed. After that, I need to put up a fence so that Midnight, our cat, will have a place to run around outside. Right now, that damn fuzzy menace is driving me crazy getting into things. I'd be tempted to toss him outside as is, if not for the fact that our lazy, city cat would get his butt kicked by the first 'coon that crossed his path.
Yesterday, we took a break from all the work and headed into the neighboring town for church and a little rest. The town was hosting an arts festival, and as a result had about three blocks of the downtown closed off to traffic and filled with artist's stalls. Often, those kinds of things are filled with a lot of kitsch. This was a little different, and had succeeded in attracting a number of highly skilled and talented folks. All in all, it was a nice afternoon.
August – Moving back to Indiana
A lot of folks have been curious about why we have chosen to move back to Indiana. Well, the fact is, we didn't choose to move. The choice was made for us.
As many of you know, we are currently fighting a rather lengthy and involved discrimination case against my now-former employer, Hitachi Data Systems. Back at the end of June, I finally decided that it would be impossible for me to ever go back to work for those folks and I filed a claim for what is called "constructive dismissal". What this means is that I am alleging that my employer has made things so hostile within the workplace that we will never be able to successfully resolve all of the issues to the point where I could realistically return to work. Basically, what I was saying is that "I quit because you've made it impossible to work here".
Well, since we were living in England on a work permit, and I was now no longer working, the British Government decided to revoke our leave to remain. I unsuccessfully appealed on the grounds that I was fighting a discrimination case, but the Home Office didn't seem to give a darn. I even had MP Lynne Jones write a letter on my behalf, but still nothing.
OK, so rules is rules… I guess I can't gripe too loud especially considering how crappy the US treats immigrants. But I have to say that it really pisses me off that each and every day I'd read stories in the British press about nutcase terrorists, religious extremists, murders, and rapists who were allowed to stay, given housing, food, and spending cash, and here I was being shown the boot. Not once did Sharon and I take from the British dole. What we did do was pay a shit load of taxes into the system. Now there's thanks for ya.
*Jessica steps down from her soap box*
Even before we exhausted our appeals, the Home Office gave us 28 days to get out of the country. So, we started packing up and the house quickly filled with shipping boxes. As we packed, we also started saying our goodbyes. After two and a half years, Sharon and I had made a number of really good friends. It was hard, and tears were shed on more than a few occasions.
Things got more and more frantic as the big day approached. Or "days" as the case was. Sharon needed to leave on the 21st of August, but I stayed on until the 23rd in order to get all of our boxes to the shipping company.
On the plane flying back, I wrote a journal entry called "Back Home Again" about my thoughts on returning to Indiana. You can read it here if you are interested.
August – The Chosen One
In the midst of all our craziness surrounding the move back to Indiana, I went and did something else crazy. I auditioned to be in a TV game show!
I had never done anything like that before, and I don't know what inspired me to do it then. One afternoon I was surfing the web and I came across a call for auditions for this program called "The Chosen One". Now, don't go checking out your TV Guide for a listing or anything. This was only the working title. I don't know what they are gonna call the silly thing once it gets broadcast.
The posting said they were looking for strong-minded people who were intelligent, persuasive, and conversant. I have at least a few of those traits, but what really hooked me were the words "Massive Cash Prize"! I thought, "what the heck", and I filled out the application and sent it in.
To my surprise, they asked me in for an audition! And then a second one. And then a third one! After this, it really started to get crazy. They ran a police check. They called about a dozen references. They had me take a medical and -two- psych interviews.
I was feeling pretty darn confident about the whole thing. Heck, I was already thinking of ways to spend my winnings!
Finally, after three weeks, the big day came. I got the call.
"Jessica? This is Matt from The Chosen One. Yeah, well, I was calling to let you know that we've decided that you're not the best fit for the program. Sorry."
The funny thing in all of this is that Sharon and I haven't even watched TV for about 16 years. Just so you know, we're not planning on running out and getting one now.
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