All the world's a stage...

So a couple of days ago I was sitting at the Naked Lounge with my friend Steve and we were just shooting the breeze when the Muse hit me square between the eyeballs. I started listening to the Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" (which also happens to be my iPhone ringtone) and images started coming into my mind. I then started searching the net like a maniac for images that had an emotional impact on me as I looked at them. I wasn't sure of any one theme but more for the feelings that it elicited in me as a means of my understanding how I see the world. Once I had started, it's as if the small project took on a life of it's own... how many images I like could I put into the span of time that the "Bitter Sweet Symphony" would play. A few hours later, I had an essentially finished project. I leave it to you, my dear readers, to be the judge of what it means to you: The World's a Stage

Helios Alive!

In sunny California it is almost unheard of for people to not have AC in the summer. I also have AC.... BUT... it's not central but a single small window unit in my upstairs. NOT ENOUGH... especially on days when the temperatures are in the triple digits. I do what I can ( I have plans to insulate my windows on hot days I hope to put into action today) but there are times when I just have to retreat to one room with my dog and hope that I can stand the noise.... Thank goodness for Sling Box so that I can watch the downstairs TV on my computer upstairs.

I love the Sun; it just doesn't always like me (skin cancers, sun burns, heat in summer, etc.). But it is an amazing site when you see the surface for the first time (which I was trilled to be able to see as a child one of the first times I looked through a friend's telescope). Consider a few factoids:

1. The sun converts 600 million tons of Hydrogen into 595 million tons of Helium EVERY SECOND and it has been doing so for the last 4 1/2 billion years.

2. If you could capture and use all the energy that the sun emits in ONE SECOND, it would be greater than all the energy ever used by humanity in it's ENTIRE HISTORY.

3. Compared to other stars, the Sun is classified as a yellow dwarf star. Dwarf? YES. The largest star I know of is the star VV Cephei which is so large that if you put it in the same position in the Solar System it would be larger than the orbit of the planet Jupiter!

Belated Reminder...

So why is the date of June 28th so important to the LGBT community in the United States? I had wondered about this when I heard someone mention the Stonewall Riots. Riots? When? Where? I had heard of the Madeshene Society (spelling) which was an underground organization of homosexual men in the first half of the 20th century... But what were the Stonewall Riots? Here's where Wikipedia comes to the rescue and I spent about an hour reading about the riots in New York on June 28, 1969 in the Greenwhich Village area after a police raid on a gay nightclub and bar (incidentally run by the mafia) where the patrons had had enough and fought back against the police. I ask you to read it as well: Stonewall Riots

I must apologize to my readers for not having written this blog at the appropriate time which would have been yesterday.... my only defense is to say that friends, lack of sleep, and a house in California without central AC has taken my attention other places than writing. I also point out a phrase that my father once told me and it has stuck with me since I was a young man: You can only oppress and marginalize people so much before they fight back. For all my LGBT friends, this is your time and we will gain you the rights that you have been denied since time immemorial.