Damned Homonyms!

I have always asked that question on road trips...my fav construction next 53 miles and never see a sole.

This is a quote from a not-so-close friend on Facebook. I wanted to reply, "I think that's a good thing because those damned soles are always littering up the power lines", but thought better of it. It's funny... when I read, these types of mistakes, they jump out at me. But when I write, I make the same mistakes all of the time. It has caused me to realize that writing and reading exercise different parts of the brain.

Boston and Vermont

I met a a guy at the GNI Gathering two years ago, who immediately became a friend. We had kept in contact throughout the year that followed and I was absolutely elated to see him upon my return to GNI the subsequent year. He lives in Boston with his partner, whom I had never met, and had purchased a vacation country home on Rock River in Vermont. Rock River is very popular gay swimming hole near Brattleboro Vermont. For about a year and a half now, he has been inviting me and the BF to visit them but somehow the time and season never seemed to work out.

So when he invited us once again a couple of months ago, I was determined to make it work. Getting to Brattleboro isn't the easiest thing to do since there is only one Amtrak train from here to there that leaves just once per day and takes 8.5 hours. We considered driving, but that too would take about the same time assuming no traffic. Good luck with that. So we decided to fly into Boston and spend part of Friday there before leaving to Vermont.

Once in Vermont, we spent late-afternoon Friday down on the river, which was stunningly beautiful and bucolic. We stopped at swimming hole #5 where we talked to some guys there that Steve knew and swam in the river. This was the last swimming hole and is mostly visited by gay men for naked lounging and swimming. On Saturday and Sunday we attended the naked massage workshop at Frog Meadow. Frog Meadow is a gay B&B, with a beautiful and large home, pond, hot tub and miles of hiking trails. Late that night we went to a gay-owned restaurant named Peter Havens in Brattleboro before sitting on the porch back at the house with a cocktail.

On Sunday, after the workshop, we headed back to the river where there were even more people than before, then later had dinner at a local tavern.

Before heading back on Monday, we bought local cheese, maple syrup and toured a couple of the local towns. All in all it was an absolutely wonderful weekend and I'm glad I got to meet my friend Steve's other half.

SIDE NOTE: Brattleboro was the site of a news story that I had read about last year. Basically, with their philosophy of "live and let live", Vermont is the only state (that I know of anyway) in which public nudity hasn't been made illegal. So last year a group of teenagers took to hanging out in the downtown area naked on weekends. The city legislature, determined to put a stop to this eventually passed a law that public nudity was illegal within the business district, which is actually a relatively small area. Even though I wish that they had not passed such a law, I think it speaks a lot about Vermonters that the law was as narrowly constrained as it was. Had this had taken place nearly anywhere else, public nudity would almost certainly had been legalized throughout the jurisdiction. Go Vermont!

Palin Clone

So... err... vote for her because... she's a straight shooter?

IMEN

So I've been trying to convince the BF to go the IMEN Gathering this year. We've never been before, but I imagine it is a slightly smaller version of the GNI Gathering. Having attended GNI two years ago (and already signed up for this August) and to The Woods Campground just a few weeks ago, I decided that this naked camping this is pretty cool and really wanted to go. He does enjoy it but he most enjoy events that entail "doing something" (my words not his) whereas I will be perfectly content on doing nothing at all as long as I am sharing the time with cool people.

Anyway, he told me that I should go ahead and go, but he will not be attending, and I am really looking forward to it.

C.R.A.Z.Y

Movies, and more specifically Hollywood, tends to disappointment. My most common grief is that they spend so much money on a move and spare no expense, but then put in the most inane things. Sometimes these are lines, or a ridiculous character or situation. Sometimes it's a response that makes no sense, but supposedly underpins the entire movie. Typically, Hollywood movies have great production, great sound, great special effects but incredibly poor writing and characters. Oh well.

That's why I was so happy when I saw this just a couple of nights ago. We watched it via Netflix Instant Play, which I love and believe that the concept is definitely the future of home movie watching. I just can't wait until they get the majority of their library online.

Anyway, this move was superb and I'd definitely recommend it. Be forewarned... it's in Canadian French, but well worth reading the subtitles.

I Love You Phillip Morris

I hadn't heard of this until today. Supposedly it has a very explicit sex scene in in which Jim Carrey instructs Ewan McGregor to "come in my ass" or something similar. I haven't seen that scene, but here's the trailer, which looks like typical Carrey-zany fair but with somewhat of a twist.

The Woods Campground

Last week we went to The Woods Campground near Allentown PA for leather weekend. This was our first time going to a clothing-optional/naked, gay campground outside of the GNI Gatherings. A friend of ours visits several times a year and was telling us about leather weekend while we were both visiting other friends in Richmond and I decided to go.

We arrived on Friday around 6pm and almost immediately ran into the friend. He immediately got us to remove our clothes, but of course that wasn't too hard for me. Since my only other gay, naked camping was GNI, I'll try to compare and contrast.

• Obviously there were less people at the campgrounds, but that was to be expected.
• There are less occasions where you would see a large majority of people in one place at the same time.
• It did retain the very friendly and open atmosphere that makes it so easy to meet others and share time together.
• Since it's clothing optional, there were a fair number of clothed people, particularly during the daytime.

Overall, we had a really good time. Some of my favorite memories were:

• Spending several hours with a beautiful 24 y/o who followed us around for the better part of Friday. He wore shorts during the day, but nothing but a harness at night. Very sexy.
• Going to the party that was hosted by a couple of the guys there. Their place had a surprising number of bath tubs...
• Spending a couple of hours in a nearby camp that saw me stumbling home late Saturday night. They invited me over for smores, great fire-roasted grilled cheese sandwiches and even better conversation.
• And of course... the dungeon.

I'm already booked for the full week at the GNI Gathering in late August and am hoping to be able to attend the IMEN Gathering for a half-week in July if possible.

I Could Care Less

Interracial Trends

I love interracial couples whether they are straight or gay and I'm not even exactly sure why. Perhaps it's because I am in such a relationship or perhaps because I tend to find all races beautiful. Or maybe it's because it is a symbol of acceptance and the world as I would like to see it.

Anyway, I came across this report by the Pew Research Center that reports that almost 15% of all new marriages are between people of different races or ethnicities. There's also a pretty cool interactive graph here that really highlights interracial marriages by geographic region here.

Take away... If you're looking for a mixed race marriage, move to Cali.

I've often stated that the two things that continue to drive technology are games and porn. Porn is so prevalent in gay culture that you can find it playing openly in many gay bars. Although it's certainly less open, I've often wondered how prevalent it has become in the straight world given the rise of the Internet. This infographic helps answer those questions. Unfortunately, it is possible to have such a graphic without asking "what is porn?" Given that one of the search engine results that they qualify as porn is "gay dating", I'm kind of taking these statistics with a grain of salt. Besides if it had any real scientific they would have published their methods. I know... I can be such a geek.


Via: Online MBA

Gay McDonald's Commercial

Not a fan of Micky D's, but this was cute.