Final Board Meeting

Worked late yesterday on researching the current project. They sure don't make things easy here. No documentation. Poor structure. But at least my boss was gone. Bitch. Actually, I would never see my boss on most days of the week. I just like saying "bitch" to freak out those of you who would never dare to risk saying it about your own boss. Maybe that's why I embellish the truth about slacking off. Freaks people out. Grabs your attention. Yep, attention-whore here.

Got home and went to Wild Card to get a b-day card for Tom. They had a couple hundred naked cards. Tom likes hairy chested, hugely endowed, circumcised men. I couldn't find such a card there. Mostly hairless. I went to my usual card store, DYMK, and picked one out in 10 seconds. I was just trying to save time by going to Wild Card. Obviously that didn't work. DYMK comes through every time. Larry was working. I'll have to dig out that email I got from his partner about scheduling some play time.

I went home and logged onto work again. No rest for the wicked. Peggy came over and dropped off the TV she had borrowed. She gave me a ride down to Sanchez, and I took Tom's card and gift to Casa Sanchez. I had an unopened bottle of Rush, so I knew that would be a welcomed gift. Especially hearing about the spilt bottle during his L.A. trip. Tom wasn't home. I tried Todd, Rick, and Chris. No one was home. Some guy opened the gate, and I convinced him to let me in to drop off the gift at Tom's doorstep.

Walking home, I got past Starbucks and I hear shouting. Ken was outside Uncle Bert's yelling my name. I headed back down and he bought me a beer. Anthony was with him. The jukebox played "Tits & Ass." The bartender wasn't really listening and made a comment about the song being from The Muppet Movie. Ken said it was from Sesame Street. "Today's show was brought to you by the letters 'T' and 'A'." LOL.

I got home, checked messages, then headed to the Lone Star about 6:30pm for one final board meeting. John and Jeff were already there. I grabbed a beer and read Jeff's Spectrum column. His 50% cuter theory was cute. Most other board members showed up before 7pm. Following Mark's lead, they all went upstairs, even though the meeting didn't start until 7:30pm. I waited downstairs. Why spend more time with them than needed? Gives me less to complain about.

Most new board candidates showed up after 7:15pm and waited downstairs. They got it right. I had switched to bottled water and headed upstairs at 7:30pm. After Larry showed up just a minute or so late, Mark started the meeting. Instead of a normal board meeting, some board members recapped what they did over the past year. Weird. Others heaped on praise for various things. Whatever. The year was successful. Fine. Let's move on. Garnet tried to keep things moving with "next" comments. Thank God he was on the board this year to do that. The meeting only took 30 minutes, and that was just fine with me. With 10 candidates and only 9 slots, Chris Matthews was the only one not to be elected. I'm sure it was probably a tight race. Chris did look super fabulous with a new buzz cut. I was just happy that Mark Battat was elected. He is fantastic.

At 8pm I walked up to Van Ness to catch Muni to the Castro. When you gotta pee, the wait seems incredibly long. Got to the Castro and stopped at Daddy's to piss. I got to the Rec Center at 8:30pm. There were 8 people dancing, and Peggy Shumway calling. The square wasn't breaking down. What was wrong? Oh! John wasn't there. No bad dancers. Kewl. After the tip ended, Bob had to leave, so my timing was perfect. With only two dancers who haven't done Plus, Don convinced Peggy to use some Plus calls. She walked them through 5-6 Plus calls. Both Ammon and Darryl picked them up rather quickly. That made it a lot more fun. Peggy is not as enthusiastic as I like in a caller. She does seem to have a knack for bringing people up to speed on new calls, though.

After dancing, Joe, Don, Matt, and I went for coffee. George was crossing Collingwood, so we grabbed him for coffee, too. We were kicked out of Starbucks at 10pm. Don parked on Caselli, so we walked back together. He can be pretty snippy with callers or dancers. I'm glad I'm on his good side. :-)

Steve had arrived a few minutes before me and was just finishing up a piece of cake. God, he likes cake. I prefer pie. But, I like food in general, so I'll eat anything. I've managed to avoid the cake for the most part. We played Fluxx for a bit. I like spending time together. My sister Judy and I played a lot of card games and board games together when we were little. Glad to have found a partner who enjoys that, too. We watched Seinfeld, then I crashed.

I got up at 6am and into work by 7am. I was just in time to catch a fairly empty Castro Shuttle. I read more of Atkins book. It's gonna take me forever to finish it before I can start the diet. I am learning stuff about Atkins I hadn't known previously, so it's worth the read.

Mark Battat had left me an email, so I called him this morning. He's the new BOSF newsletter editor. Great! He wants to go to lunch next week so that I can review stuff with him. He'll do fine. I was secretly hoping that someone would be worse than me for sake of my own ego. That's not the case here. I couldn't think of anyone better to do the job. Not sure if he wants to continue with the seemingly popular interviews, or if he wants me to do it. I have a couple ideas of guys to interview, but I'll gladly pass that info along.

drewbearsf, aka Garnet made some comments in his blog about last night's board meeting. His comments were fairly innocuous, but it generated some vile replies from others about BOSF and bear clubs. Some guys want to enjoy the fun stuff the club does, but they don't want to do any work and then be able to badmouth the club. Grab life by the balls, don't just sit on the sidelines and expect to be served. Did I have fun serving on the board? No, but I knew going in that it was work. Somebody's gotta do it. I'd probably do it again when my schedule allows and there are certain board member changes. I think those will occur next year.

My Dad

I don't mention my father, Jim, on here much. Guess I figure if I don't say anything than everything will stay ok.

He found out last summer that he has bone cancer. In three spots. Life expectancy is usually less than 6 months. It's been nearly a year since the diagnosis.

He is on some good painkillers. He gets patches of various strengths to help. He seems to keep his spirits up. We email at least once a week. I'm not a big phone person, and I'm thrilled he uses email. He lives in Rome, New York, which is near the center of that state. His wife, my evil stepmother, is a nurse. Finally she is proving useful.

He forgot my birthday last week, which is no biggie. I forget birthdays all the time. He did send me a great note this morning apologizing. He was happy to hear that about 30 guys showed up to my party. He said that he doesn't think he knows even 20 people to invite to a party. He'll be 70 in November. Hope I have more than 20 pals if I make it to 70. Maybe I should send out the e-vite now. I'll be 70 and Steve will 87. My dad will be nearing 100. Bring a gift.