Home

Today I realized I miss home. This is the first time I have been away from home for more than a week. I miss my puppies, but most of all I miss my David. I've also realized that there is more I miss in my life all together. I miss being able to touch someone that I love very much. I want to hold him close and have him hold me as well. I think that somewhere along the way, we lost that and need to get it back. I just wonder how many people lose their way in a relationship after they get comfortable? I really hope we can get it back because I miss it.

I also realized that I miss being around family. I grew up with a large extended family that got together at least once a week. I miss the arguments and debates we would have around my Aunt Evelyn's kitchen table. I absolutly love David's immediate family, but I honestly don't care for a good number of his aunts and uncles. I also don't really know many of his cousins either, but most of them are only teenagers and I know I don't have that much in common with them.

I also miss having friends to gather at the house for dinner and drinks. I remember when I lived in Shrieveport, JT and I would always have a house full of folks at least one night of the week. Other nights, we would all gather at someone else's house, or just meet out at a resturant and then go out dancing. I want to find friends like that in Philly especially if we don't get transferred.

Just Another Day

Well, I woke up this morning at 0400, an hour before my alarm clock went off......UGGGG! I really miss home, and I've only been down here for four days. It's too hot to sleep well at night since the AC in my dorm room only goes down to 72 degrees F. I also think that I'm not sleeping well, because I don't have two dogs laying on me during the night. I'm hoping that I get a good fatigue sleep over the weekend, and not in class. This class is going to be a really good experience for me. I'm learning how to be a better writer when it comes to Official Correspondance. I'll learn to be a better public speaker with the five to six speeches we have to give while we're here.

It's official, the legislation to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the yearly cost of living raise for the military was not passed today. I think it has to do with the fact that there are too many Senators up for re-election this fall, and they don't want their names attached to the bill. Let's face it, the majority of people who vote, still think that being gay is a choice......i.e. our grandparents. I just wish that the rest of the public could see that it is not different from "Seperate But Equal" it is legalized discrimination. It really pisses me off to know that we are so politically correct when it comes to racial and sexual discrimination, that we are numb to the discrimination that is occuring based on who someone is sexually attracted to. I mean, I'm not allowed to use the N word or call someone of Hispanic origin a Wetback, but it's perfectly ok for gays to have to suffer in silence in the closet or when ever someone calls them a fag. The really sad thing is that the gay community just sits there and takes it. They don't rally together to expell representatives that won't vote to allow for gay marriage or repeal this law. I guess all of the strong willed gays have died out from AIDS or old age. Where are the Queens who started the Stonewall Riots?

Class

Well, class offically started today. We mainly focused on school policies and rules. I took a look at the material that we are going over tomorrow. It involves the things that we have to do as a nation to support the initiatives of our Governement in regards to the War on Terror.

Parts of it made we think of the current policy that we as a Government do not negotiate with terrorists or those nations that support/harbor terrorists. However with the Iranian Hiker Prisoners, I am curious to see if President Obama is going to talk to the Iranian President about his request that we release five prisoners we are holding "as an act of good faith" for the release of the other two prisoners they are holding. I hate the fact that these young men and young woman were taken as prisoners. But my question is what the hell were they doing hiking in Iraq while a war was going on?

Lady Gaga

Well, this past Tuesday David and I went to see Lady Gaga in concert. Even though we had pretty crappy seats, the concert was amazing. I've always been one to be moved by music, but that night, something in me clicked. Especially when she stated talking about how she is working with homeless teenagers who are LGBT and her work to try to get "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repealed.

I used to think that as gay Americans, we had the same rights as everyone else. That night, it dawned on me how I am a second class citizen since I am not allowed to talk about my significant other like everyone else at work is. It also dawned on me that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is nothing more than a legal way for our Government to discriminate against a growing portion of our population. I was so moved, I actually wrote to my Senators to ask them to stand with Senator Reid and repeal a law that Bill Clinton allowed to pass through congress as a "compromise" to a campaign promise he made. You know, I have never been ashamed of anyone that I dated in the past, but I also didn't love them so much that I wanted to take them with me to work functions like I love David.

I also saw the light on another subject that I really still don't agree with, just because I don't agree with the practice at all. But we in the LGBT community deserve to be as miserable in our relationships as heterosexual peoples. Why should I not be able to claim head of household when I bring in more money to the house when we pool our resources like a married couple? It's nothing more than another case of legal discrimination.

Acadia - Last Day

Today was spent mostly just lazing about camp. We did go into Bar Harbor to buy some art, and I got a bell shaped like a lighthouse.

I have waited to make this trip for almost six and a half years. I can honestly say that it was well worth the wait. We are going to try and come back up here next summer. Hopefully we can schedule a carriage ride, one of the boat tours, and make it into anemone cave.

I took some shots of the moon and stars coming up over the ocean and Otter's Point. Hopefully they turn out all-right. Well, it's a long drive home tomorrow here's to hoping the Boyd sleep most of the way home.

Acadia - Day 2

The day started out grey and dreary. I got up, took the boys out, and started working on my blanket while David slept.

After breakfast, while I washed dishes, David took the boys on a long walk. He came back, put them in their office and we took a long walk ourselves. We ended up at the beach at Otter's Cove. We watched the tide come in, and I played in some of the tide pools. I saw a crab that was holding a smaller crab, like a momma crab holding her baby. Most likely, they were mating.

After lunch, David and I took a drive. We stopped at Thunder Hole, Otter Point, and a few other places. While we were at Otter Point, a park ranger came up to where we were on the rocks with a group of people following her. We learned why the park is set up the way it is during her talk. This is the only park that is made up entirely of land grants from private citizens.

Way back around 1900, there were a few folks up here that loved this area so much, they gave up a few acres here and there to preserve it for future generations. This is an astonishing thing because the National Park Service wasn't started until 1916. The fact that people had the foresight to put aside land and want it to be federally protected was pretty amazing.

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Acadia Trip - Day 1

Today I woke up and took the boys for a walk. While I waited for David to get up, i worked on my blanket some more. After he got out of bed, we took the boys for a ride so we could get showers and get some groceries. I have to admit, this is the first time I had ever seen pay showers. You got four minutes of water for $2 in quarters; ingenious that should make someone a decent living near a park that doesn't have showers. After groceries, we went back to camp to have burgers for lunch, and drop off the boys so we could go up to the visitors center in the park.

On the way to the Visitors Center in the park, we stopped off at a few of the scenic pull offs and took pictures. I'm thinking I will add some of our pictures to my journal when we get home and I can edit this better. While at the Visitor's center, we got our National Parks passport and saw the introductory film for the park. We went on some more of the Park Loop Road and stopped at the Nature Center and the Abbé museum here in the park. We are thinking about going back there tomorrow and looking at the gardens there if it's not raining.

After seeing what I've gotten to see today, I really think we need to preserve areas like the National Parks. Not preserve them so they never change, the planet is evolving every day so that is very hard to do, but preserve the space so that it is always wild and can evolve and change naturally the way God intends. You see, God is in the details of life and you never know what He wants us to do and/or see.


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Acadia Trip - Arrival

Well, we got here. It only took us around 10 hours to get here from Heather and Kevin's house, and that was just to Bar Harbor, not to our campsite. We got to the park well before dark, but I thought that the campground would be in the park itself, not further down Maine Route 3. So we took the trailer through the park for at least an extra hour.
When we finally got through Bar Harbor with the trailer, we found our way to Blackwoods Campground and got checked in. Since I got the trailer too close to the curb, David took over the driving to fix my error and get us settled into our spot. On the way into our spot, we hit a tree with the side of the trailer because I didn't tell David to stop soon enough. We didn't do that much damage, we just folded down part of the door molding and David had to fix it so we could get into the trailer.

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A New Look at Life

On 1 March 2010, I had to take a Physical Fitness Test and I woke up nervous. I just knew that I wouldn't pass, don't ask me how I knew, but I just did. It's not like I hadn't been running and working out like I was supposed to be, but I had to run on an indoor track and that made me nervous. It didn't help that when I got to the track while I was waiting to take my 1 1/2 mile run, a batallion of Army personnel came in and started playing vollyball at one end of the track.

I started my run and tried to ignore the Army folks, but that wasn't in the cards that day. As I would come to that end of the track, I would have a vollyball or a person cross my path like so many obstacles. I would slow down, speed up, or dodge people, the ball, and flailing limbs as they would get in my way.

Needless to say, I did fail that day because my shoe came untied and I stopped to tie it. That day, my commander found out that I had failed and in his anger told the First Sergant that I would not retest and that I was to be put out of the Air Force the next month. The only thought that I had was that I didn't know what I would do for money since I had bills that had to be paid. The year before, I had bought a brand new car, I lived in a nice appartment that cost about $1500 a month to live in. I knew in my heart of hearts that I didn't want to move home and work for my dad. But what would I do for a job since I was being kicked out of the Air Force. I also had found that I didn't like the thought of throwing away fifteen years of military service let alone fifteen years of my life.

At this point, I knew that I had to do something. I decided that even if I was kicked out, I needed to make a lifestyle change. You see, the circumference of my stomach was in all honesty 37 inches around but I could suck it in to 36 inches. I was fat!

A New Year

Well, as we are all too painfully aware, it's a new year, and God only knows what it will bring. Will it bring pain and suffering? Yes. Will it bring joy and happiness? Yes. Will it bring resolutions and promises broken? Yes. It will bring all of these things, just which will it bring you? What will make you great or an utter failure is all in how you handle and deal with all this year brings you.


- Chuck