I have to admire a guy who is probably the worlds most famous mountain climber and announced to the world that the achievement he is most proud of was building schools and medical facilities in Nepal.

From an article covering the death of Edmund Hillary

During an interview in May 2003, not long before flying to Kathmandu to mark the 50th anniversary of his and Norgay's climb, Hillary said his feats on Everest and at the South Pole did not stand out as personal highlights. "I haven't any doubt that the most worthwhile things I have done have not been climbing mountains or going to the Poles or so on," he said.

"It has been helping my Sherpa friends, building the schools and medical facilities. I think that is what I would like to be remembered for."

Posted by Dan Housman at 07:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have to admire a guy who is probably the worlds most famous mountain climber and announced to the world that the achievement he is most proud of was building schools and medical facilities in Nepal.

From an article covering the death of Edmund Hillary

During an interview in May 2003, not long before flying to Kathmandu to mark the 50th anniversary of his and Norgay's climb, Hillary said his feats on Everest and at the South Pole did not stand out as personal highlights. "I haven't any doubt that the most worthwhile things I have done have not been climbing mountains or going to the Poles or so on," he said.

"It has been helping my Sherpa friends, building the schools and medical facilities. I think that is what I would like to be remembered for."

Posted by Dan Housman at 07:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At a lunch conversation someone mentioned that a famous science fiction writer had been complaining that humans travelling into other planets was not realistic and would probably never happen. While the barriers do seem quite high due to the problems of travelling too slowly and transporter systems not likely to function properly without one built on the other side I do think people will appear in other locations. Here are my theories for how.

1. The spore strategy: Spores from mushrooms and mold have been thought to be able to leave the atmosphere and wander through outerspace. These little guys are so small that they fly on their own but the idea of a spore is to have lots of them shoot and float in random directions. When one lands it then colonizes a piece of rotting fruit. We will sooner or later create systems that can grow an embryo from a simple 2-4 cell thing into a full human. So we just need to send a few billion of these flying in womb sized pods that can survive impact on a foreign planet. Inside the pod would be all the machinery to grow the embryo and some seeds for tomatoes and other interesting edible plants. The pod lands, plants the tomatoes, waits 1,000 years - not too long or else the vegetables will evolve out of growing nutritious snacks, and then activates to grow the human. The newborn eats the tomatoes and the special milk-fruit. The pod also contains a video ipod with Jor-el style instructions about the home planet.

2. Beam the codes - construct there: We just assume that there are aliens on other planets and they can read signals from us transmitted through electromagnetic waves. We also assume they are good at organic chemistry since most good universities on the alien planet offer EE and Organic chemistry majors. The instructions we send are the basic blue prints for life on earth. We start with the machinery to build DNA and the core functions that allow for replication including ribozomes for making proteins, RNA, and possibly a whole mitochondria. Essentially they are going to have to synthesize the minimum set of materials to make a self sustaining cell without having a cell to begin with (an interesting science project that we can keep working towards while waiting for the sun to explode). The other instructions would be to send out the entire genomes (both male and female - probably Brad and Angelina) for people and cows. We'll need some burgers when we get there. This approach is preferred since vegetarians generally are less interested in space travel. Some genetic instructions for making tomatoes, grass for the cows, and a ten page human care and feeding pamphlet would also be helpful.

3. Space can: We read about this in grade school. Just build a big nuclear powered asteroid. It can have it's own atmosphere and renewable resources. It can periodically collect some new nuclear fuel and can always jettison bad stuff out the back. It just wanders around looking at solar systems until it finds something cool. We probably need 10 of these going in random directions and in communication with each other and Earth to keep up to date with the latest gadgets and news. The upside to them is that if we accidentally start using nuclear weapons on earth or screw-up the atmosphere these arks can preserve our genetic material and culture.

4. Travelling Robots: We figure out how to transfer intelligence into robots. They have no issues with 2 million year lay overs in alpha centauri. Alternatively we genetically engineer people to have similar attitudes to long flights.

5. Good enough planets: With terra forming all we need to do is get to the nearest star with a few planets which is a lot closer than going to a solar system with a good planet like Earth. We can figure out how to make a planet work from a lifeless hulk of volcanoes and sulphuric acid rain showers after we fix ours after we break ours.

Posted by Dan Housman at 04:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was walking around Porter square after moving my car after parking once at a mall to get to a holiday party to move my car before Pat's towing got a hold of it. On my way back I passed the New England Culinary Arts school and peeked into the window to see a bunch of future chefs listening to a lecture of some sort. I then walked near the back because I heard some chainsaw sounding noises to find a group of people training to build ice sculptures. It met the key criteria for culinary arts. On my way back home from the car later someone had accidentally spilled a mass of hard spaghetti on the black concrete. It was quite artistic as well.

Posted by Dan Housman at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Someone asked me to link to the birds central site from this blog. While I saw no relevance to what I generally care about I did notice that they had a section for discussing pigeon racing. I then linked on to the American Racing Pigeon Union which begins with the question....

"Do you fit the profile? We find that this hobby has a great appeal to those who enjoy working with animals, to those who appreciate athleticism, to those who like friendly, wholesome competition. If you find yourself in one or more of these descriptions....be careful, you may discover that the allure of these amazingly athletic birds is overpowering. You can seek out your own comfort level with the birds.

If you desire a lower-key approach, with only a handful of homing pigeons for the family to enjoy, that's certainly an attractive approach for many. The spectrum also includes those who are deeply committed to racing. Races range in distance from 100 miles to 600 miles, with 300 miles being among the most popular distances.
"

Maybe I should try racing pigeons although I should probably go with the lower key approach of having only a handful of homing pigeons for our family to enjoy. Sounds like fun, right?

Posted by Dan Housman at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night we cooked dinner with some remnants of the four day weekend. I am looking forward to seeing zucchini, squash, rice pilaf, and hot dog on the cover of Gourmet magazine next month. After the grilling was done we were mostly left with the remnants of the vegetables. The fridge still is full of corn and asparagus. What’s for dinner tomorrow? Maybe corn, asparagus, rice and hot dogs.

On Saturday we visited Gloucester with Matt and Kate. When we arrived they were both hard at work mowing or chopping weeds somewhere on the property. We then sat, grilled, and chatted until Hattie and Jose arrived. Hattie mentioned that she had brought the regular desert and I told her that I was excited to eat her Rice Krispie treats before she informed us that the regular desert was apple crisp. We had brought some beers. I had planned to swim but it isn’t an easy proposition in Gloucester with the rocks and the cold water so I just walked around the rocks with Madeline up high on my shoulders.

I spent Sunday chasing girls and getting chased by girls in the pool. The girls were between two and five years old. It started when I threw some of the beach balls into the detached hot tub area, not hot, and we made a game of throwing the balls back and forth. The hard part was that the wind was strong enough that often a good throw would go far off to the left or the right. I suppose I was chasing more beach balls than girls. The other men were building PVC cannons and guns to launch potatoes into the air. I was more interested in floating a few inches beneath the surface of the pool. We were awaiting a storm advertised on the Internet with hail the size of golf balls that never arrived. At some point the kids and mother’s made home made ice cream in a ball from REI that gets super cold when you roll it and put salt and ice into it. Madeline enjoyed sucking down the bottom of the cone and munching on the sweet sugar honeycomb shell at the base.

We drove down to Marshfield for Sunday and Monday nights. On the way I was diverted to Home Depot to purchase a cover for the riding lawn mower because it was trapped in the mud. Dad was worried it would get rained on and rust when the hail storm that was supposed to come finally came. It didn’t. Monday was a good day to sit by the pool. Sarah’s friends came by including Jeff, Meredith, Matt B., Sarah K, and Sarah K’s sister. In their twenties there had been all sorts of drama among this crew of people with Jeff cheating on my wife, Sarah, with Sarah K. but now people were just floating in the pool having let the drama of their twenties out like a bunch of cooked vegetables. Matt got to drinking more than most and had an odd comment about everyone’s siblings but mine. I was too busy in the pool hiding under the water to notice. Jeff and I managed to move the lawn mower trapped in the mud. The new Mosquito Magnet my dad had bought had collected a few thousand bugs but it didn’t stop a few thousand more from launching out of the mud when the mower moved to attack Jeff and me.

Hattie and Jose came by on Tuesday afternoon. Hattie brought thousands of her famous rice krispie treats to appease me. I had liked the apple crisp. We talked about their upcoming marriage and having kids. It’s hard not to talk about kids when you have one. Not long after they arrived and we had eaten our grilled salmon steaks the torrential rain came down upon us. So we ran about putting away the umbrellas and hid inside to watch the downpour.

We took 3A home and the traffic was surprisingly light for a holiday weekend on the way home to Brookline. When we got home we had to unpack everything and drag those vegetable remnants back inside. The extra tax bill where the government had rejected some portion of our return was waiting for us as was the real estate tax bill that needs to be paid by August.

Gemini was sick from the beginning of the weekend acting lethargic and without her trademark constant bark. Sarah K’s sister was the new person on Monday and is studying to be a veterinarian. She looked at Gemini but I never heard the results. Gemini would barely be able to walk from inside the house to outside to pee so she just lay next to her food and water. She got the extra hamburger and some extra chicken. By Tuesday night, July 4th, my parents had taken her to an animal hospital. Mom said that the vet was clinical at first, letting my parents know that they could keep Gemini for observations, but the cancer was very far advanced. My mother asked if the vet would recommend euthanasia and that was the recommendation. So my parents were quite sad when I dropped off Madeline on Wednesday morning because they had just put a loved one to sleep. I gave my mom a hug but I wasn’t sure how to comfort them.

This weekend my family, parents and sister, are driving together up to Toronto to view the unveiling of my grandparents’ tomb stones. Sarah will stay home in Boston with Madeline. With death floating around I get to thinking that death is a great reminder to live fully and not waste healthy days. If there is something I want to do or see I should do it or see it without worrying about the wrong stuff, the reasons why not to do or see things.

I got another little dose of death by watching the Bukowski documentary Born Into This. Sarah wasn’t very interested in the file so she went to read the sequel to The Devil Wears Prada in the bedroom. The end of every documentary is usually the protagonist wasting away from a stroke or cancer. Maybe Hunter S. Thompson shot himself to avoid those slow dying scenes in his documentary. I was struck by a good poem during the movie that made me remember why I have recently come to fear Anne Coulter and her many raving fans.

The genius of the crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

by Charles Bukowski

Posted by Dan Housman at 05:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I realize that I missed the Zombie march in Davis Square this afternoon. But how often does your aunt come to see your new daughter (her great neice?) for the first time. So we drove out to Marshfield and my dad convinced me that it would be good for us to clear all the leaves around the pool so that when it opens at the end of the week it won't immediately fill with rotting stuff. Marshfield was in a bit of disarray and my mother was less than pleased to find that the entire NIMH mouse colony had spent the winter happily munching on a giant stash of dog food and sunflower seeds while sleeping cozily in dishtowels and linens. Spring is a time of rotting things.

But it is also a time of fresh things. I am a huge fan of fresh baked goods. I don't just mean baked goods cooked today. Fresh to me is that the food reaches my mouth within 5 minutes of when it leaves the oven. A fresh baked good should have steam coming off of it or out of it. For example - The popovers at the Jordan pond tea house are rarely handled by hand by the waitstaff for fear of burns and when you poke the top of them a happy burst of steam shoots out. They then melt the butter you spread on them as you are spreading it. On St. Maarten they have a french bakery where you need to go there at 8 AM but if you do you can purchase a croissant that has just finished it's trip in the oven. For more mundane fresh baked goods I used to go to the Mall in Natick with Stephanie and while she would shop I would monitor the Mrs. Fields cookie vending area for the exact moment when the cookies left the oven and then would make certain when I ordered the 6 cookies I planned to immediately eat that I would only take the fresh batch that was still hot enough to burn the roof of my mouth even if they made me sign a waiver that I wouldn't sue them.

So today we were at Brueggers at 9AM and I could see as we reached the front of the line that the everything bagels were rotating in the oven. So I asked when they would be ready and I pulled Sarah and Madeline out of line
to skip over to the coffee and then proceeded to watch the bakery area and everything bagel bin like a hawk for signs that they had arrived from the oven. We did manage to get some excellent bagel sandwiches made with the super fresh bagels.

This brought me to the conclusion that the ultimate futuristic bakery and bagel shop must provide better visibility to roaming tech geeks and teenagers with adequate knowledge of their home computers and cellular phones of when each baked good will be exiting the oven. What I imagine, and I'll bet they already have this in Finland or something, is that the bakery could track batches of baked goods throughout the baking process and with known stages they could forecast the time when the everything bagels would come out of the oven. As the consumer I could subscribe to this information either interactively through a web browser (since all bakeries should be internet enabled) or by subscribing to the information through an RSS feed or SMS message publishing service. Then as I am planning my morning walk over to Breuggers I could leave when the SMS message hit my phone that my favorite bagels would be ready in 8 minutes. Anyways if the Brueggers folks don't like this idea then I think I'll have to start my own high tech bagel concept bakery just to show everyone how much consumer supply technology for perishable foods can improve the freshness of baked goods.

Posted by Dan Housman at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the past few years I had somehow managed to avoid the Boston Marathon. I was either preparing for a wedding, traveling, or just trying to get out of town for the three day weekend. But this year I decided to give it a new look because it made a great way to see my family in Newton and was the sort of activity that works well with a six month old baby. Madeline turned six months just last Thursday. Time flies.

We decided to get to the event early this year camping out near the 20 mile mark on Comm. Ave. According to other locals near us that puts us somewhere before heartbreak hill so the people passing by were generally cheerful. The race starts with a bunch of people who get to leave early so they don’t get ensnarled when the mass of humanity comes rushing through. The first folks to flash by are the wheelchair racers. I think we came outside just as the leaders for the wheelchair race past us and it didn’t affect me as very interesting other than to see the different designs of wheelchairs that followed. Most of them racers rolled their chairs by turning the wheel directly but a number of less able bodied looking folks either older or heftier appeared to be gaining a mechanical advantage through a crank driven chair design where they could turn the crank with their hands using what looked like bicycle pedals. We pondered the rules of the wheelchair race and without ever actually examining them I determined that they must only allow some people to use this design because it offers an advantage if they can attach gears to it.

The women came next. If you aren’t an elite woman runner then you probably won’t win the Boston Marathon, or at least you won’t appear to win on the news. The elite women get to start an hour early or so from the rest of the racers. It does pose the question and problem that a very fast late starting woman could beat the time of the best elite woman racer even after the elite racer had been crowned the winner. That would make for an interesting outcome but it probably won’t happen in my lifetime unless someone tries that T riding strategy again and T riding is probably much harder now that they are using RFID to track the runners as they proceed through the race.

The first women came through looking very impressive because their physiques made it clear that there was no room for body fat on them. One woman passed by and I thought I was looking at those charts from the gym where they show where all the muscles are that you are working out on the weight lifting stations.

My dad kept pinging back and forth from inside the house to watching the Red Sox game and race results to being outside where he could see the race. I never cared about who was winning. I was more interested in just watching the racers pass by and watching Madeline’s reaction to being outside in a crowd. The crowd around us started to build after the women passed by. Until then it was a small spattering of onlookers doing a little bit of cheering. A guy looking much like Ray Romano was together with a group of friends who were all prepared to root for a number of runners. They had signs ready and even t shirts to show their support. Down on the corner of Water Street a group of kids who looked drunk but didn’t reveal a source of alcohol (maybe they were devout Christians drunk on religion?) had gathered. I figured they were somewhere between high school and college students. They were goofballs but entertaining. When the mass of humanity arrived they learned that they could get a lot of reaction out of the Korean’s running by going crazy when a Korean passed by and yelling about how much they loved Korea.

The men leaders ran by quickly. I had figured that a Kenyan or Ethiopian would be leading but it looked like a Caucasian man was actually leading the race at the 20 mile marker. My dad let me know later that the winner had been Kenyan or Ethiopian and set a new course record by two seconds but I never looked for his picture. I was more interested in the mass of humanity to pass by after the leaders.

The Hoyts must start the race with the wheelchair racers because they were running very close to the men’s leaders and I don’t get the feeling that a man pushing his 30 year old handicapped son in a stroller could compete with 20,000 healthy runners for times. From what I could tell the Hoyts are in their own category of runners, determined to beat a disease, and they win the category every year. They may have gotten more cheers than the leaders running past with the trucks and giant clocks.

The race then devolved into what I was looking for. Plenty of the racers had painted their names or countries on their legs, chests, arms, and backs. That allowed us cheering section folks lounging on our Target outdoor recliners sipping wine in a Solo cup to tell “Amy” that she was “looking good!” or “Todd” that it was only a “Few more miles”.

Nick and Christina arrived because we had heard from Andrew that he was going to run as a bandit, a non-official runner. We had to essentially provide a constant watch for Andrew in case he passed by. Finding someone that you know is running the Marathon is like playing Where’s Waldo for five hours. You look at every body that passes and try to match it against your expectation to what a friend or family member might look like after having run 20 miles. Christina hadn’t been to the Marathon in a while either and she was amazed at how many people the Ray Romano character knew because he called out the names to encourage so many runners as they passed by. She caught on that he was reading their numbers and we all were taking turns calling out encouragement to the runners. We took special pleasure in the MIT runners as they passed by and Nick and I settled on the encouraging phrase for MIT runners – “Move that beaver!”

Scattered among the crowd of runners are a number of entertainers. We had hoped to see someone with a hat and a beer hanging from it but were disappointed on that front. We did see a Spiderman and Riddler separated by 30 minutes. A nerdy guy was running with a beanie on his head. Some folks were wearing large afro-wigs. The MIT folks, probably because they are shy and can’t figure out how to get a date, posted their cell phone numbers on their backs with messages to the “ladies” to call them.

Having watched people pass by for about four hours and consumed a few too many hamburgers and hot dogs we decided that it was unlikely that Andrew was going to appear. What made this clear was the sad bus full of people passing by. The bus picks-up the straggling suffering masses who can’t continue to the end and takes them to the finish line so that they can go home. In front of the bus a police car calls out that runners should move to the side of the road because it will shortly be open to traffic. One Canadian from Edmonton stopped his running to talk to us to complain that he had thought the race would be fun and he had traveled just to experience it but that it was too long and crap. I wanted to give him a lecture that 26.2 miles is the same anywhere and that he didn’t need to go for a run in Boston to learn that he wasn’t a marathon runner but instead I nodded and waited for him to painfully continue running.

Madeline appeared to have a good time for the day. So did I. I would run it if I wasn't so afraid of what it would do to my back.

Posted by Dan Housman at 03:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As we were driving out to Bedford yesterday I saw a bunch of those cheap signs by the entrance to 128 hung on wires with plastic between them advertising the Boston Pool and Patio Expo. Since we are looking forwards to having fun this summer lounging by the pool in Marshfield I was easily swayed by this crude form of advertisement into visiting the Bay Side Expo Center today. We were hoping to find a perfect set of lounge chairs to recline on as we sip home brewed Mojitos while waiting for our burgers and dogs to cook on the Weber grill. I envisioned a circus atmosphere for this expo including fully extended swimming pools filled with bikini models attempting to sway wealthy suburban buyers into purchasing one brand of pool or another. These models would fly from the ceiling from a trapeze inspired by Cirque de Soleil’s ‘O’ and this would only be the pool and hot tub section. The hot tub section would have, for a fee, rentable bathing suits to sit with the bikini models in various pool settings. Beyond the pool area there would be a vast selection of patio and lawn furniture of different styles, shapes, and genres that would put the New York State fair to shame. I would be able to sample iron vs. wood and even laugh at chinsy plastic backed chairs with those straps that leave your back with stripes on it. We could even pick-up some of the stands that we desperately need to hold the umbrellas that my dad purchased on the Internet but decided not to get with stands because the shipping costs were too high.

So, given my expectations of a full day of expo wonder in a dreamlike world of pool fantasies when we arrived at the Bayside Expo Center I wasn’t that surprised at the Disneyland price of $12.00 to park my car in their somewhat empty lot. What is $12.00 I thought for the treat of a world of retail debauchery. We walked to the door to the Pool and Patio Expo and saw that it would obviously be a huge event within the massive Bayside multiplex facility because there were multiple signs directing people carefully to split them between a GLEE Boston show and the pool and patio show. Ha! Those GLEE Boston people are trying to sneak part of the audience from the pool show I thought. What a great idea to use the advertising budget from such a massive event, people who can afford to cover highway exits with cheap planted wire and plastic signs.

So we found our way into the pool and patio exposition and were immediately filled with wonder as we saw an entire room filled with square hot tubs. It was a big room filled with square hot tubs. Some of them were white, others brown, one was so big that it was almost a swimming pool, and one had a television built into the hot tub. This must be a huge event, we thought, if they can fill an entire room with hot tubs. We should go looking for the lawn furniture room! So after poking around for a moment attempting to get directions from a security guard we learned that the entire expo was this room full of identical looking square hot tubs. Not only were these hot tubs identical looking to us but they also were generally sold before we had arrived. So if we happened to like a brown instead of a yellow hot tub we would not have been able to purchase it if we wanted to. I looked in the hot tubs, most of which were empty, for the bikini models and only saw those four hundred headed spider eye like metal fixtures at the bottom that you would rather feel than see. We did see a couple of cool bar fixtures for hanging out by the pool and a couple of people were selling pool design services with pictures of pools that they had designed behind them but overall this was not just a minor let down. It had been beyond any possibility the most under whelming possible experience that I could have expected. It had exceeded any possible level of disappointment.

So we left the pool and patio expo after about 20 minutes because they didn’t even have furniture to sit beside the identical looking sold hot tubs that wasn’t for sale and I was still smarting from my $12.00 that I had spent to park at the event. So I suggested to Sarah that as long as we were at the Expo center we may as well check out the GLEE show. Now I had heard the GLEE show advertised on the radio a few times so I knew that the G in GLEE stood for Gay. It is in fact the Gay Lifestyle Enrichment Exposition that we were standing outside the front door of as a nice heterosexual married couple with our six month old baby strolling around in a snap and go. So I didn’t have as much time to envision what was inside of the GLEE show but I did have visions of it as well prior to going inside. I imagined that it would be filled with gay people staring at Sarah and myself but otherwise having a great time partying while going booth to booth where people were advertising products like gay cruises, gay pornography, and weird kinky sex toys. I had an image in my head that someone had managed to condense all of Greenwich Village and Provincetown into a single giant trade show floor, Disney World style, and Boston’s gay world was having a grand time partying in it. Since I had paid $12.00 to park – I was going to see it!

So Sarah and I peeked our heads in after passing a few lesbian couples hanging out by the door for an outdoor cigarette. An apparently gay greeter greeted us and informed us that there was a fee to get into the Expo. He asked us whether we were at the right show and was ready to point in the direction of the stupid square hot tub collection across the parking lot. He had a nametag hanging from his neck like people do at proper trade shows. This increased my interest because it lent legitimacy to my fantasy that it was going to be a glamorous event for an exclusive set of interested parties. I wanted to use our obvious knack for not fitting in to our advantage by mentioning that we had come for the other show but were curious about this show. He escorted us nicely past the registration booth, told us that there were plenty of fortune 500 companies advertising, handed us a bag full of goodies, mentioned that there was live entertainment in the back and launched us onto our journey into the show without having to pay the fee.

At first glance the GLEE show is just a trade show with the same structure of booths and displays as other shows. Many of the booths contained the fortune 500 companies trying to sell luxury or financial products including American Airlines and AXA Financial. Apparently gay people, because often they aren’t burdened by 6 month old babies soon to require college tuition and drinking money, have a large amount of disposable income that needs to be spent and invested. So companies have decided to market at gay friendly events. For example, there is nothing particularly gay about either meat or cheese but Cabot cheese was giving away free samples and coupons while d’Agostino meats was offering free tastings and a lottery to win a freezer full of meat. They refrained from any specific gay advertising with regards to the meat. Mohecan Sun was giving out some very useful tape measure, level, post-it note products and offering to deliver a free night’s stay. Some companies also were just marketing cool stuff including one that sold high end bathroom gadgets with both a normal size bathtub filled with tons of Jacuzzi spray jets, a wall mirror that could turn into a television and back with a simple switch, and a toilet that opened when you passed it including both a bidet and deodorizer.

In general we were the only people walking around with a baby. This was fun because plenty of people like babies and would come over to say hi and ogle and entertain Madeline then start-up a short conversation with us. The lack of a 6 month old baby problem was something that there were a few solutions for among the booths. The show offered a number of different sperm banking locations including California Cryo-bank that boasts that only 2% of sperm donors pass their stringent screening process and some IVF center in central Massachusetts.

The show did have some areas that weren’t as well targeted to us including the two booths advertising their status as the leading gay porn magazines and a large collection of dyke in the city clothing. One booth was for Out magazine or something like it and had an interactive flash game called “Get Lucky” that I was too timid to play. We made friends with a flamboyant gay real estate agent who told Sarah that I was very cute and to hold on to me tightly. He waved to a man walking past and signaled ‘can I have your number’ to which the man nodded and walked onwards. One photographer had a set-up selling large prints of naked odd people including a woman with her shirt off who had apparently undergone plastic surgery to become a transsexual man, a tall elderly woman with stiff taught silicone implants, and a heavily tattooed and pierced woman with half shaved, half bright red streaked hair. A gay cruise line was marketing and there were plenty of organizations and associations including rainbows in their logos.

We did manage to find some lawn furniture at the show. A nice man and his sleeping daughter or business partner, a round tattooed lip pierced younger person with a shaved head, were selling beautiful teak furniture. We sat and listened for about half an hour about the wonders of teak because it doesn’t get water damaged and the fine joinery from the manufacturers that the man buys from. He quoted us on teak pool chairs and we even wandered over to the live music area to sit on a chair that looked like it was from the titanic to see how comfortable it would be. We also found a nice photographer who apparently specialized in heterosexual family portraits but had some great pictures in her portfolio and had an impressive bound book that she had made for a family of four.

Overall we had a grand time at the GLEE show to help offset our extreme disappointment at the Pool and Patio Expo. We left feeling like our $12 on parking was well spent.

Posted by Dan Housman at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)