ok. so i’m trying to come up with a new design for everymoment.org. and i had an idea.. and started working on something. but i got stuck on an image, so i’m turning to you, my wonderful everymoment.org visitors to help me out.

so here’s the question. what does the words “every moment” make you think of?

i need some input here! 

please leave a comment or a video comment reply below. THANKS!!

i received this message from a friend of mine the other day. please read and reflect… this situation is not ok.

… As you may know, last Friday was the Day of Silence, a day that was created to make people aware that gay individuals have been silenced in our society.

Well, I had a full-time job a supplemental instructor in a local high school, tutoring individuals who needed support in their classes. One day, some students asked me if I am gay, and I informed them that I indeed am gay.

Now, my orientation was no choice of my own, but I am now thankful that for it. I am not ashamed of this.

However, the principal told me that I should not have told anyone because my orientation is no one’s business. Normally, that would be the case. However, in a society where my people are publicly persecuted and oppressed, my personal life immediately becomes relevant to the public. For example, how could Martin Luther King’s message have had the same power if he couldn’t let anyone know that he was black himself? How could Esther plead for her people if she could not tell her husband that she, too, was an Israelite?

Secondly, I wanted to show students by my example that gay people are cool and respectable, and not abnormal, depraved, or predatory, etc. Many of them had never met someone who was gay. I was in a unique place to destroy ignorance.

Unfortunately, the principal fired me because of the truth. My witness at that school was silenced.

Do not feel sorry for me, but pray for my students who wander lost without their mentor, and pray for the man who perjures himself every morning when he affirms his commitment, before God, to the idea of “justice for all.”

discrimination like this is never ok. it is this type of behavior that encourages the undeserved violence and hatred towards LGBT individuals in schools, workplaces and in society.

i say it again…

this
is
not
ok!

any big plans this weekend for you all? it’s raining right now and i see the forecast on my dashboard saying that it may snow on sunday. what? snow? late april? great. i guess that will help me not feel bad about staying inside and getting work done on all these websites that i need to finish this week.

anyways.. have a good one

my blog may never be the same again… since seesmic now has a wordpress plugin for adding video to blog posts AND comments. it has inspired me to work on a re-design of everymoment.org next. (sorry disgruntalbowler.com fans… that one is just gonna have to take a back seat to the em.org redesign )

(and ps. i still have a couple seesmic invites if you want to leave video comments on my blog.. leave me a comment and i’ll send an email to the email you entered. k?)

for all you people in the milwaukee area, we are playing a gig at the apple store in bayshore tonight from 8-9:30pm. you should come.

secondly, i think i’m gonna try to do a ustream live webcast of the gig, but i may need to find someone to man the computer to make sure that people don’t stop the broadcast accidently. i’ll see what i can do.

hope to see you tonight!

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Originally uploaded by tray

look what i won from chumby!

yep. it’s true.

and i’ve already been on the phone with the tech support people… and guess what? they helped me. (i know this is a pretty strange concept.. especially in a world where companies like time warner cable get away with not providing any sort of customer service to the people who keep them in business…) the lady i spoke to was helpful.. and even walked through more help than i had asked for… just to make sure that i was completely satisfied. so i am now officially a happy at&t dsl customer, along with a current happy at&t wireless/iphone user.

well.. the time has come. i finally have another option for high speed internet here at my apartment.. so i’m running… full speed away from road runner “high speed” cable internet (a part of time warner cable).

i have used road runner/TWC for many years… and every year i would rather shove sharp objects in my eyes. the customer service for time warner cable has been worse than bad, the service has been slow and choppy, and i have been randomly disconnected, hung up on, and been treated like crap for no reason whatsoever. there was even a week of time where my internet was getting speeds of LESS THAN what i got when i had DIAL UP internet. not only that, but they have been over charging me for months, and they now owe me over $150, since they said they were going to “correct the mistake.” (mind you.. that was over six months ago…) i can’t believe that time warner cable is still in business when this is the kind of “service” they provide.

so i am happy to move over to at&t for their highest speed residential DSL option (which is still cheaper than what time warner cable was charging me for their crappy service). i’ve also talked to their tech support and they have always treated me with respect and taken care of any questions/problems i’ve had. last time i checked, this is how a real business takes care of their customers. (i guess time warner missed that memo…)

i’m officially logging off my computers here at home, and disconnecting my internet, and will await for my DSL to be turned on tomorrow.

hey all, i’m heading to bed now.. but i just wanted to write a quick post about my first day at my new job today (well… yesterday.. since it’s past midnight). it was fun. i’m sure i won’t remember everyone’s names.. but at least i got a map of the office to help me out. i almost got my new work computer all set up how i want it.. and i’m still figuring out what to do with my office. it’s kinda funny to say, but it almost feels like when i moved into the dorms. that same kind of white wall, empty room type of feel. once i get some sort of couch in there and add more wall decorations i’m sure it will help feel more like a productive working environment.

alright. now i’m off to bed. g’night all!

wow. i’m exhausted. it’s 7am and i haven’t been to sleep yet. i made the horrible mistake of thinking “hey.. i’ll have everything for tracyapps.org moved over to my new host.. and that one should be an easy one to move over to the new host… so why don’t i change the domain name to point to the new server at 11pm…”

so do you see how dumb that was? well if you are a web developer, you will see it immediately. first off.. there is no such thing as “an easy site to move over to a new host”… secondly.. when changing a domain name to point to the new server, the settings of that domain name are going to wait to the most inopportune time for the change to actually go through. in this case.. it was after i was already tired and sick of working on websites… at 5am.

i just spent the last two hours “tweaking” my webpage to work on the new server.. and import all my old files, designs, settings, etc… but now tracyapps.org should be officially up and running on my new server. three sites successfully moved… two more to go… *sigh*

anyways. now i am going to go to sleep. my next “bad idea to start this now” project will be to redesign everymoment.org… but i’ll wait until i have a whole lot of other things that i need to do to start that one. g’night!

there’s still lots of stuff that needs to be fixed on my website now that i not only moved to a new server, but i updated to wordpress 2.5.