When I was a kid, there were only 8 colors to choose from.

Now... there are millions. Life was simpler as a kid. It's amazing to me just how much time one can spend on web page design. I am in the process of completely redesigning our web site. It's a lot of work just deciding on a design. I've been working on it all day and when I'm complete, I am hoping to have a web site driven completely by CSS. Don't worry about it if you don't know what CSS means, except, it's cool stuff. When I'm done, the menus should load fast and the design will be completely different and should be a bit friendlier to less popular browsers I hope.

I've been so caught up with work and web design, that I haven't even checked what is happening in the world. There are a few things I put together at the bottom of this entry about things happening in the news. Heck, we could be at war and I probably wouldn't even know. That's the beauty of web design. It's very easy to completely lose yourself in it.

So what's new in our life... well, we now have our very first DVD tower to put all our DVD's in. I thought I had a lot of DVD's, but they all fit in one side of this case. It is square and rotates to the other sides as needed. You can tell not much happens out here when the arrival of a DVD case causes a "disturbance in the force".

Ever since our company left, my cats have been cranky. We aren't sure why. You know how cats are. To them, no company is good company. Kent's brother and sister-in-law visited for a few days. Maxwell is here mulling over my keyboard and getting his hair all inside. He says "hi" to everyone in cyberland.

We are cooking out tonight and having shish ka bobs. I'm not sure about the spelling of that, but I'm sure when Kent reads this, he will correct the spelling. They will be beef shish ka bobs (sorry for not being politically correct to all you vegetarians out there), marinated in a sesame ginger sauce. It is starting to smell really good. We'll cook it all up on the grill and eat on the deck tonight. I wish I had gotten my teaky torches now. Oh well.

We went to see Terminator 3 last night. Kent didn't care for it so much, and I have to agree that it wasn't nearly as good as the second one. In fact, I think they should have left it with the second one. The story line made sense. Now, they can go on and on and on with sequels. At some point, it just gets cheap.

The only BIG thing happening in the news right now that could effect us here in Connecticut (eventually) is what is happening in our neighbor state of Massachusetts. They are debating if it is constitutional to deny gay people full marriage licenses. Seven gay couples who tried to get marriage licenses were turned down. They subsequently sued and this is the result. If Massachusetts allows this, a powerful precedent will have been set. The first state in the nation will be allowing full-fledged marriages for gay couples. That's pretty major. Of course, if history has taught us anything (Bowers vs Hardwick), it will take about 17 years for that to happen. I'm not holding my breath.

Zoe, thanks bunches for the guest book entry! It was nice to hear that I wasn't too "out there" for people at the party. Of course, we'll see if I'm invited next year (haha)! I had a great time, but it's just as well we left. We aren't great dancers. As we left I noticed that you two were dancing and totally in to each other. It's no wonder to me that you didn't see us leave. And by the way, don't mention to Andy that we are a gay couple. We usually don't tell people for awhile so they are not too shocked. On the other hand, how many non-gay men compliment another man on his eyes.

Well, that brings us up to day. We hope your are all having a great time where ever you are! Cheers.

Boston Globe backs gay marriage rights. As the top court in Massachusetts prepares to rule on same-sex marriage, the largest newspaper in New England urged the court on Tuesday to extend marriage rights to gays and lesbians as a matter of constitutional fairness.

In a lengthy editorial titled "For Gay Marriage," the Boston Globe said, "For all the legal acrobatics offered by opponents, it is hard to see how anything other than an animus toward gays and lesbians prevents them from obtaining the same 'benefits and protections' enjoyed by heterosexual couples."
Major Newspaper Stokes American Gay Marriage Debate (Reuters)

Second Canadian province legalises gay marriage. British Columbia has joined Ontario in legalising same-sex marriage, with the Appeal Court in Canada's westernmost province ruling that gays and lesbians have an immediate right to wed.

The three-judge panel on Tuesday ordered "reformulation of the common law definition" of marriage to declare it a union of any two individuals, regardless of gender. The Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, bowing to pressure from the liberal-leaning top courts, last month pledged to make gay and lesbian marriage the law of the land. The British Columbia decision came as religious conservatives in Canada battled to preserve the 137-year-old legal definition of marriage as the"union of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others".
British Columbia approves gay, lesbian marriages (Boston Globe)
B.C. court OK's gay marriage (Winnipeg Sun)
B.C. allows gay marriages (Seattlepi.com)

Gay ex-colonel sues over dismissal. WASHINGTON -- A former Army lieutenant colonel who was discharged in 1997 for being gay has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and the military sodomy statute. The suit, filed in federal court here, is based in part on the recent sweeping Supreme Court opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which declared that the Texas sodomy statute violated the right to privacy. Jon Davidson, senior counsel at Lamda Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the federal lawsuit was the first to be filed using the landmark court ruling as a precedent. The former soldier, Loren Loomis, who filed the suit late Monday, said he was seeking to reverse his discharge and to have his military record corrected.

Loomis was discharged just one week shy of the 20-year career mark that would have entitled him to full retirement benefits after his home was burned down and a firefighter found a videotape of him engaging in sex acts with other men. The Army discharged Loomis, who was wounded in the Vietnam War, in which he won two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart, under "other than honorable" conditions, a move that deprived him of pension and benefits that he says are worth more than $1 million.

Under the policy introduced by the Clinton administration, the military cannot inquire into a soldier's sex life unless there is clear evidence of homosexual conduct. Men and women who volunteer the information can be discharged. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a gay rights group that monitors military justice, is assisting Loomis with his case.