Jpatrickm

As a photographer I’m always thinking, “Damn, why don’t I have my camera with me”. I have several of them, I just either forget to carry them with me or they just aren’t convenient to carry around. I have a Canon D30 SLR digital, which I use for work and any high quality shots I want to take, but it’s cumbersome.
I used to have a Motorola V600 phone that had a built in camera and I really liked the pictures it would take and the unique look it produced, although they were mostly just for fun (see Mobile Gallery). I replaced that phone, however, with an Audiovox PPC4100 Pocket PC phone that does not have a camera.

I’ve been searching around for a small digital camera that is not too expensive, that would create funky pictures and that I wouldn’t mind carrying around everywhere with me. So, I picked up a little Vivitar Vivicam 3545 a few days ago. It’s a little pocket camera with 16MB of built-in memory. On the medium quality setting it holds about 170 pictures and connects to the computer via a USB port. It’s kind of fun because you don’t know what the pictures look like until you download them (it doesn’t have any preview screen).

Anyway, I took a few pictures with it and uploaded them to a new photo album called Vivicam. They are just a few snapshots from Thanksgiving day spend with friends.

Thanksgiving in San Diego. I woke up in that end-of-November-christmas-in-the-air mood. I figured I would get ready and head to Starbucks for some holiday blend coffee to warm me up. I ironed my shirt, threw on some jeans, pulled on a sweater and headed out. I opened the front door and was hit with a blast of 70 degree heat. There wasn’t going to be any scraping the frost off the windshield this year.

Hope everyone had a filling Thanksgiving!

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I’ve decided to dedicate this entry to a subject that means a lot to me for several reasons. Many of you may already be familiar with those litle yellow wristbands that you see people wearing everywhere and maybe you’ve wondered what they are for. The wristbands were created by the Lance Armstrong Foundation to raise money for cancer research. As you may know, Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer in 1996 at age 25. He fought through and survived the cancer and went on to win the Tour de France 6 consecutive times, the all time record. Last summer I got really into cycling and of course began researching more about the sport and about Lance. I became particularly interested in his story because my older Brother Scott died of cancer in April 2002. My Brother was just about Lance’s age when he was diagnosed and fought it with unbelievable strength for almost 10 years. I recently finished Lance’s autobiography, “It’s Not About the Bike. My Journey Back to Life.” In the book Lance describes the excruciating pain and difficult journey of getting through to the other side of treatment. While I read the book, it was as if I was getting a glimpse into what Scott went through and what he might have been thinking. I also couldn’t help but think to myself, where the hell was I? I mean, I was there, but I wasn’t REALLY there. I was about 21 when Scott found out he had cancer and I think in retrospect as maybe we all do, I just turned on this blocking-coping mechanism to remove myself from the pain of it all. We all find our path somehow in this world, whether intentionally or not and after Scott’s death, I felt this sense in myself and in my other Brothers and Sister, that we didn’t know where our path was. That we didn’t know what we were supposed to do next. We came face to face with the mortality or temporariness of it all. We had the wind knocked out of us. I’m not sure if we still know our paths yet. It’s a learning curve though. In Lance’s book, he describes the people who get cancer as “the lucky ones”, because only they truely know what life is, how to live it and how important it is.

So I try to ride my bike as often as I can because it gets me out into the world and forces me to experience life even if at the least for those short few hours when it’s just me and the road and the wind. When I’m on that bike, Scott is with me. He yells at me when I think I can’t make it up a long hard hill and I laugh with him when it starts to rain and I don’t care that I’m wet because I’m alive to feel it. It’s not some game I play in my head to make everythink ok, it’s just what I have.

And so I wear yellow. I bought my first pack of 10 wristbands from the Lance Armstrong Foundation this past summer and I gave them out to everyone I know. They were backordered and many places were sold out, so they were in high demand. We all have different reasons for wearing one. Some just think it goes well with their jeans. I wear a yellow wristband as a reminder for many things in my life. It reminds me that today I need to Live Strong. I may not always be good at it, but I need to try. It reminds me of how peaceful it is out riding on my bike by myself. It reminds me of my friend Chase who first got me addicted to cycling and of our 4 hour rides through the Seattle summer heat. It reminds me of all the people who have asked me about my wristband and to whom I was able to tell the story of my great Brother Scott. It reminds me of all the people I have given a wristband to, so that they would have stories of their own. And, it reminds me of Scott; of what he went through and how damn strong he was and how I need to keeping trying to find that path.

They say that today there are over 10 million people living with cancer and so it’s important that we keep up the fight both for the survivors like Lance and for those we lost like Scott. I bought another pack of wristbands and I thought instead of just handing them out, I would offer them here online. I have 7 left so they go to the first 7 people who request one. I’ve already made a contribution to the Lance Armstrong Foundation by buying them, so I thought it would be cool to raise the stakes and request that people donate again to raise even more money. All of the money received will be donated back the LAF, with the exception of shipping costs to send you the wristband. They orignally cost one dollar and so I’ve listed suggested donation amounts including shipping. If you are feeling generous, you can select a higher amount. You can also purchase these directly from the Lance Armstrong Foundation website (www.laf.org) but they are backordered for 4 to 6 weeks. All donations are accepted through Paypal.com.

	$2.00
	$5.00
	$10.00
	$50.00
	Other Amount (enter after clicking button)

Thanks! LiveStrong…

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I’m back in San Diego now. I flew back in from New Hampshire on Wednesday. It was a good trip. It’s getting cold there now and so the 70 degree sunny weather in San Diego was a welcome change. I’m on my own now for a week or so, as my roommate headed north today to Oregon, via San Francisco, to visit his parents for Thanksgiving. I dropped him off at the airport this morning. So it’s just me holding down the fort. It might be nice to just relax and have some alone time and focus on work. Ah, who am I kidding… I’ll be bored as hell!

Anyway, I ran across a great site if you have your own Blog. Do you ever wonder where those cool little 80 pixel buttons that you see on Blog sites come from? They usually link to the RSS Feed or a Blog name such as . A lot of people create their own, but for those less-talented, I found a site that has a TON of them, all organized by category. There are even music and political ones so you can promote your own style in 80 pixels. I updated my sidebar on the bottom right here to include some of my favorites and to promote some of the tools I use to build and maintain this site. Here are some of my favorites: .

They are actually quite addicting and there are almost too many to choose from. I want to use them all.

The site can be found at http://gtmcknight.com/buttons/. Just make sure you copy the buttons to your own server instead of just linking to them as a courtesy to their bandwidth.

Enjoy.

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A friend of mine sent me an article from the New York Times that reported that a significant number of former soldiers being called back to duty are refusing to return. The full article is below. It’s interesting reading but also a bit unsettling for me. I finished active duty in the Army in 1999 and, as the article states, had a follow-on committment in the IRR (Individual Ready Reserve), which lasted until September 2003. The IRR is a mandatory term that everyone in the military has after their active duty term and is basically a safety net for the military to have a pool of people to draw from in an emergency. It has been rarely used until now. Just as the article states, Officers do not automatically get released from the IRR, but must actively resign their commission when their term is up. I resigned in September as a Captain and so all this time I’ve been relatively confident that I was safe from any recall. Apparently there are a number of cases, however, where people who are in the same situation and who claim they actively resigned years ago, are getting called back.

The hard part is that you are dealing with a segment of the population who are fiercly patriotic and who volunteered for service in the military and did their time. Then after fullfilling their committment, they are getting ambushed back to active duty. It’s a dangerous game for our government to play and it runs the risk of undermining the inherent trust that makes our all-volunteer forces operate effectively. When you yank someone back to active duty after years of being a civilian it puts unreasonable stresses and demands on them and their families. Many are sueing the government. It’s hard to spend so many years fighting for your country, wearing the uniform only to have to make a choice between the country you love and your family or way of life. I am not sure what I would do if I had to face the same situation. Of course I’m gay also, so that adds another level of complexity. It’s obvious that I could not and would not want to serve again… but at the same time, I was proud to be an officer and I did not take the duties and responsibilities given to me lightly. Those who serve or have served in the military do so at a great personal sacrifice and it’s a damn tough life. It’s not a question of supporting this war or any war. Those who least want the war are those who must fight it. But we did our time. We volunteered and did our duty. I have spent a lifetime trying to conduct myself as an honorable person, living up to a certain standard. How does one run from that same service?

The full article is below:
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A few days ago, a good friend of mine sent out a graphic of a map of the US showing the red & blue states in this recent election, compared to a map of Pre-Civil War states vs. Slave States. While it is an interesting snapshot of things, I think she really was just circulating a good piece of humor. One of the recipients took issue with the email and, well… here is the exchange that ensued. I couldn’t resist jumping in with my two-cents worth. Of course this is just a good old fashioned healthy debate and I will preface this by saying that I absolutely respect everyone’s opinion and that is what makes the world go round.

Here is the map that launched the exchange….

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Well I thought I’d have more to say on here these days with the recent election and all but I’ve just slipped into this state of disinterest, which has carried over into my Blogging. I am slacking off on keeping things up-to-date.

The election is behind us and who the hell knows what lies ahead. I’ve read so much commentary on the state of things that I don’t even know where to begin to articulate an opinion of my own. I think the newspapers in the U.K. said it best with the headlines, How Can 59 million people be so dumb!. That about sums it up. I keep wondering who the hell out there would vote for Bush. That same question was asked during a discussion on MSNBC, and an analyst simply stated, “look at the map, get over it!”. It’s just amazing that all of the blue democrat states lie along the coast, coincidently where all of the major metropolitan areas are, where people are educated, where the best universities are, where the technology centers are, and where people actually communicate with one another instead of hiding at home with thier guns and their bibles. Guns, God and Gays right? Screw healthcare, the economy, the fact that we are at war, that the terrorist groups are getting bigger, that Bin Laden practically has his own talk show, that our deficit is growing and that job loss is at an all time high. I wish Republicans would actually take a look at the damn party platform for once instead of just wrapping themselves in the flag. I grew up as a republican and served in the military and I did my homework. Being fiscally conservative does not mean increasing the federal deficit to the largest in world history. Being for small government does not mean having the largest government bureaucracy in history with the creation and consolidation of Homeland Security. And another thing, my God loves us all. If you’re going to make laws that give certain benefits to married couples and not allow me to get married because I’m gay, how can I have equal protection under the law? How can you say that marriage is between a man and a women as defined in the bible and make it law when we have freedom of religion in this country? Why can athiests get married but gay people can’t? It goes on and on, but hey… we’re safer right?! My ass… I’m moving to Australia.

Anyway, I was in LA for Halloween. It was crazy. They shut down Santa Monica Blvd and from 6pm to midnight it is just filled with all types of people in costumes walking around having fun. It was a great time. We watched the crowds and did some bar-hopping. I took a bunch of pictures that I’ll post later.

I’m in New Hampshire for a few weeks. I’ll be back in San Diego on the 17th. Maybe I’ll find the inspiration to write more before then. I have LOTS to say. At least New Hampshire is Kerry country this time around.

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