[	Tags	|	education, friends, growth, home, job, love, moving, relationships, spellchecker genius, web	]
[	Current Location	|	Emory University	]
[	mood	|	happy	]

So I know I’ve never been the best at keeping up with posting to LJ, but this year I’ve actually had good reason. You see, 2009 has been insane. ( Insanely busy, to be precise. )

And that’s just up to May, only the first half of the story. I’m past my lunch hour by now, so I’m headed back to work. I’ll finish the story of the Year of Insanity soon, I promise.

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: MMOs -> Moos)

[	Tags	|	classics, geek, humor, languages, spellchecker genius	]
[	mood	|	amused	]

I’ll have a real update soon, I promise. Life’s been absolutely insane for the last three or four months, and it’s finally calming down. As it’s calming, I’m taking a little much-needed relaxing time, and I’m spending some of that time catching up on True Blood.

This post is not about the show as a whole. There’s no time for that. It’s sorta about the character of Maryann Forrester, who’s supposed to be a *gulp* maenad. There’s no time for the multiple levels of wrong they get there, but in fairness the producers deserve some credit for effort. See, they actually did a little research and found some actual Dionysian epithets for her to chant. I was sorta impressed, actually.

Except that apparently they didn’t actually have anyone conversant in ancient Greek on set for filming. There are American-style ‘ch’-es that sound nothing like any credible interpretation of a chi. And — and here’s the part where it just gets silly — as far as I can tell the script must have been printed in Arial. See, the text that simply must be “Io! Io! Bromios!” got read as — Hold your breath here — “Lolo Bromios!”

I swear I laughed out loud when I heard it, shortly before realizing that I’m probably one of about two dozen people who would actually notice. Anyway, since several more of those two dozen are on my flist, I thought I’d share. Lolo Bromios!

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: Arial -> Aural)

Most of you have probably heard the rumors by now. Well, they’re true: radiantbaby and I are moving into town. Like immediately. This weekend we’ll be moving ourselves — along with bed, computers, and other necessities — from our old house in Cumming to our new house in Clarkston. Any help anyone can offer would be much appreciated, and reimbursed with soda and pizza (or beer and veggieburgers if that’s your thing; let us know).

Two weeks later, on the weekend of the 20th, we’ll be moving the rest of our furniture. Same deal: Help will be greatly appreciated, and we’ll feed you for your sweat. (Not with your sweat: That’s not our kink.).

Anyway, reply here or email me if you can help and need directions.

In related news, our Cumming house will go up for rent as soon as we’re out of it and it’s cleaned up. We must find renters to comfort our mortgage banker, and quick. This means that we will be offering it for well under the going rate in the neighborhood. We’re aiming for $650/mo for the full 1400sqft house, but we’re open to negotiation if you need a lower rate. Pets are welcome. If you’ve ever considered moving out on your own, or if you’re learning to hate your current corporate-run apartment complex home, this could be a perfect low-cost opportunity for you. Drop us a line if you want more details.

Thanks, all!

Welcome to A Little Bird!

Spring brings the quickening of the Earth and the new formation of a website connecting and informing Atlanta area Pagans with articles, reviews, regular columns and calendar of events. The editors at A Little Bird invite you to visit our growing nest of thoughts — or to speak up and have your voice heard. Our hope is that “A Little Bird” will tell you about many Pagan or Pagan-centered events in the Atlanta area and that the singing voice of Pagans will grow stronger. Spring begins the quickening and the seeds of change are among us — or at least that’s what A Little Bird said!

A Little Bird includes:

• A calendar of events
• News about and for the local Pagan community
• Editors’ Nest
• Ask the Qadishtu (guest column)

Please let us know what you're thinking.

• Editors: editor@a-little-bird.org
• Submissions: submissions@a-little-bird.org (Submission Guidelines)
• Website feedback: webmaster@a-little-bird.org

We'll see you at A Little Bird!

Ben Ranker & Scarlett Ross
co-Editors

There’s a new bird singing in Atlanta!

A Little Bird is a new journal of news, events and perspectives preparing to serve Atlanta area Pagans. A Little Bird told us you folks might have some materials for the nest.

Some of you are organizing public rituals. Some of you are attending festivals or discussion groups. Some of you have already attended events and want to write about your experiences. Some of you are researching Pagan academic topics. Some of you have community news to share. We want to publish all of these and more:

• Local Pagan events and outings
• Rituals your local coven or group is organizing
• Festivals, Pagan Pride Day and other Pagan gatherings
• Discussion groups, including ongoing and one-time events
• Reviews of public rituals or events you attend
• News about events that affect the Atlanta area and Georgia Pagans
• Short articles about your group’s seasonal ritual or spiritual activity
• Networking classified ads

Even if you don’t have the time to write an article right now, we still want to hear from you! Email us at editor@a-little-bird.org with a cracker for the Bird — you know, little thoughts and events. Or leave a comment right here: we’ll get the word. Even brief listings and contact information can help the entire community learn what’s going on around us.

Email A Little Bird with questions, opinions and your requests for this new community website too. We don’t bite. If you’re looking for something Pagan related then chances are someone else in the area is interested, too. We want to offer resources you need. Please help us spread word of our new publication around the ’Net wherever you see fit.

Thank you for helping us improve communication lines in the Atlanta Pagan community. We look forward to serving you. Remember: A Little Bird told you!

[	Tags	|	atlanta, gay, government, jointheimpact, politics, spellchecker genius, wind	]
[	mood	|	excited	]

It was a windy day yesterday as Atlantans gathered at the Capitol for the worldwide protest against California’s Prop 8 and similar legislation that would limit family-building to a heterosexual privilege. Fortunately for me, I really like the wind. I was proud to stand up in the bluster with the 1500 or so people who gathered there in support of equality. I was happy to be able to share sign-making supplies with people who wanted to hold their message high. I was moved by the outflowing of support not only from the quickly-mustered LGBTQ community itself, but also from the many equal-rights supporters outside that community.

The Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus sang an excellent opening piece, and a number of speakers shared their unique views with the gathered crowd. Those diverse voices shared some common threads, though: The gay rights movement has made a lot of progress since its inception several decades ago. Its support base both inside the LGBTQ community and outside it continues to grow steadily to face increasing legislative setbacks. These setbacks demand action, and supporters want to act.

Some anti-gay bloggers dismiss the protests as irrelevant: They already won the Prop 8 vote, after all, and with this year’s additions they’ve refused equal marriage rights in something like thirty states. Protests, they say, are just hot air. We should all just shut up and be glad they haven’t taken away any more, they seem to imply.

Protests, however, can be much more than hot air. An effective protest can be the wind that whips up a firestorm. At the Atlanta protest, there were gusts of action. Speakers reminded people to get out and vote in the December 2nd runoff elections, where each vote means so much more due to lowered turnout expectations. They pointed people toward local organizations like Georgia Equality where supporters could devote time and money to the cause. Smaller organizations passed out flyers advertising discussion groups and other grassroots causes. Old flames whipped up in the gusts, and some new sparks crackled.

It was a windy day yesterday in Atlanta. I like the wind.

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: bloggers -> blowers)

Last Tuesday the voters of three states — Arizona, California and Florida — added discrimination to their very core by amending their constitutions to define marriage as a right limited only to heterosexual couples. In doing so they joined a growing number of states in refusing rights to gay and lesbian couples based only on the shapes of their bodies. Around the country this growing discrimination, rooted in personal moral judgment against a class of love, is inspiring people to abuse the power of the majority to reduce the rights of minority citizens to love as they will and to build legally and socially recognized families on that love.

This shameful discrimination is propped up only by couching it in terms of fear and aggression, in claims that loving same-sex couples threaten to destroy social order and wreck heterosexual relationships. This gross misrepresentation is at best ill-founded and at worst pointedly malicious. The fact that so many people hear the propaganda and accept it is heartbreaking. The notion that misdirection and fear can be wielded so effectively to refuse citizens’ rights is frankly terrifying.

To everyone who reads this message, I ask that you stand up against this fear, against this discrimination, against this false division of love. I ask that you stand up for the right of your neighbor to build a family. I ask that you stand up for love.

Please join me in protest for LGBTQ rights this Saturday. Peaceful protest events are happening around the nation at 1:30 PM EST and throughout the day. In Atlanta we are gathering in front of the State Capitol building at 1:30 and for a candlelight vigil at 10th and Piedmont at 5.

Most importantly, please pass the word around to all who love.

[	Tags	|	meta, spellchecker genius	]
[	mood	|	amused	]
[	music	|	Mazzy Star - I’m Sailin’	]

When spellchecking my previous post a moment ago, the LJ Spellchecker astounded me with so much genius that I simply couldn’t contain it in a single simple tagline like my usual spellchecker genius notes. It warranted—no, demanded—a whole post of its own.

It is with awe and deep joy that I present to you the entire LJ Spellchecker suggestion entry for “Norcross”:

Norcross

Nor cross, Nor-cross, Necroses, Necrosis, Norris, Recross, Cross, Negros, Nacreous, Uncross, Norri's, Narcoses, Narcosis, Negress, Negro's, Negroes, Across, Micros's, Norry's, Narrows, Nacre's, Cornrows, Norrie's, Necropsy, Coriss, Nero's, Nico's, Crows, Gross, Crass, Cress, Engross, Nooks, Corri's, Nicko's, Corers, Cris's, Cross's, Necrosis's, Corry's, Jorry's, Korry's, Norah's, Corer's, Crow's, Nariko's, Narcosis's, Nook's, Conroy's

[	Tags	|	atlanta, community, leadership, networking, religion, spellchecker genius	]
[	mood	|	excited	]
[	music	|	Scout Niblett - Let Thine Heart Be Warmed	]

So the past month has been dominated by PLSC. There’s been preparations to make, then going to the conference itself, and then recovery and fallout. It’s been a wild ride, and I think it’s only starting.

The conference itself was wonderful. radiantbaby and I learned some excellent information about group dynamics, and we met some fascinating, dynamic people. But we didn’t just meet them. No, we interacted with them. We shared stories, and we got some suggestions and inspiration on how to address some stuff going on down here in Atlanta.

See, for the eight or so years that I’ve been involved in the pagan community here in Atlanta, activity has seemed to be in a slow decline. People who have been around longer tell me about some big explosions and communication breakdowns that happened a little before I got to the city. There have been a couple of groups that have worked wonders at keeping things going—and some of them are still going strong—but it feels like the communications pathways aren’t there for people to find out about the opportunities and groups that are out there.

Throughout that time, a number of people I know have noticed the problem and started thinking about what to do about it. Some have started to try to fix it. A few of those are still working on it. But so far I haven’t seen any of these groups reach critical mass. That is, not until just recently.

A month or three ago, a handful of local pagan leaders started talking seriously about working together to address the problem. I’m not sure what possessed them to include me in their conversations. Nonetheless, a few weeks ago we sat down together and chatted about what we’ve seen in the past, what we see now, and what reasons we see behind the changes. We chatted about what we’d like to see in the future and what changes we need to get there. It was a productive talk, so we decided to do it again soon.

Then PLSC happened up in Richmond. I learned a bunch about small group dynamics and the forming, growth, and dissolution of those groups. And I chatted with leaders from around the country who have addressed issues similar to ours, from their own local areas and all the way up to national levels. In fact, I chatted with them a lot. I’m grateful that people like Eric Eldritch, Becky Starr, Drema Baker, and Judy Harrow aren’t up and running away from me in full haste with all the time I took chatting with them.

But they’re not running. To the contrary, they and the other leaders in attendance pretty clearly expressed interest in doing even more to support us in pulling back together and organizing ourselves. I got sincere interest from many of the people there and even direct generous offers of time and effort from a few. I was overwhelmed, to tell the truth. Here I was just hoping for some handy skills and contacts to help me in a general sense with local pagan organizations, and I was basically getting handed all of the information I needed for how other people have solved many of the exact same concerns that we’re now facing, and a good bite at direct aid in making it happen, too. All I had to do was figure out how to utilize all of these gracious offers.

I brought their offers back to Atlanta. My local compadres had set up our next chat for today—coincidentally the weekend after PLSC. We had another excellent chat today, and we came away from it with a number of solutions to begin exploring, planning, and implementing. I’ll let others talk about their own plans; personally I came away with support and resolve to make three things happen:

1. We will organize a pagan leadership summit modeled after the national Pagan Summit of 2001, but with a smaller focus. Instead of bringing in national pagan leaders to talk about national issues, we will bring in regional and local pagan leaders to focus on their own groups’ issues. This will allow us to broaden our understanding of the state of affairs from our own personal experience organizing groups and events in the area to include the experiences of many pagan leaders from different groups around the area. We look forward to finding shared concerns and working together to address them. Or, if we find out that we have different sets of concerns, we look forward to being able to share solutions to problems already solved by other groups, and to growing stronger as a community through the sharing.

   The model adopted by the national Pagan Summit has already been applied effectively in the mid-Atlantic region by MAPLC (Mid-Atlantic (regional) Pagan Leadership Conference) and WaBaPLC (Washington–Baltimore (local) Pagan Leadership Conference), and it’s likely been applied by leaders in other areas as well. We haven’t determined yet whether our current situation warrants a regional or local focus, but we’re beginning to examine how we can draw on the successes of these other groups to run our own successful South East (regional) or Atlanta (local) PLC. Personally I aim to see a firm date set for this event within a year.

2. We will organize a communication medium to keep local pagans informed about open groups and rituals and about topical news. We’re only in the beginning stages of planning, so we haven’t yet determined whether this will be a standalone paper publication, an organized addition to an existing paper publication, or simply a central website for reliable information for the local pagan community. Our aim is to support local and visiting pagans in staying better informed about resources available to them. We haven’t talked about what to include yet, but preliminary suggestions have included open public event listings, open regular social events, announcements of groups accepting members and individuals seeking groups or other individuals, topical news articles of note, and informational articles about our paths. My personal goal is to have an initial paper edition available for distribution at Atlanta Pagan Pride on Sunday, 5 October.

3. We will organize a community festival to be passed among active pagan groups in the area. I hesitate a little to say “we” on this one because a few people present raised well‐considered concerns about the idea, but I remain confident that together we can overcome those concerns. This project is based on a model that’s proven successful in a number of other regions, wherein different worship groups from the community take turns organizing the festival and main ritual. The festival’s name and general time and theme remain consistent, but each year a different group takes responsibility for the details. The benefits are many and varied, but overall they contribute to a growth in maintainable shared community. This is not the highest of my three top priorities right now, but I am committed to seeing it in concrete planning within two years.

I’m really excited to be a part of making all of this happen. A stronger, more visibly active local pagan community is something I’ve been wanting to see for several years now, and to share that concern with respected friends is strong and affirming. To share it with friends who are ready to set aside differences and tackle the problem together is downright uplifting. And to have unrequested standing offers from uninvolved remote pagan leaders to help make these things happen is simply indescribable.

This next year or three is going to be insane. I can’t wait.

So in theory work likes me to… ya know… work. Ya know, usually at least. Today, however, I’m dubbing “Connectivity Day.” Why?

• IBM corporate is switching the VPN software for (many of) its employees. This means I have to get the new VPN software installed and working on my laptop before tomorrow or else lose access.
• My cell phone reception at home sucks big hairy donkey balls. This isn’t a problem in and of itself: it’s sufficient if I’m just sending texts or chatting with friends. But if I’m trying to take part in actual business conference call meetings, it’s just not acceptable. And I have another one of those tomorrow. Did I mention I don’t have a land line? Some of my coworkers have reported positive experiences with Vonage, so I’m going to see how quickly I can get that set up.
• ISS, though now a subsidiary of IBM, still has its own private networks (in addition to IBM’s) and thus its own VPN connection. I’ve never had much luck trying to connect to it from my home Linux boxes, but it hasn’t been a problem because I haven’t really needed to access those resources from home. Well, now they’re testing a new VPN setup too, and they want me to try to get this new one set up from home. We’ll see how that goes….
• I leave my home wireless completely open to make it easy for guests to connect. I watch for neighbors and cut them off if they’re too naughty. But since it’s open, I maintain a firewall to prevent wireless hosts from connecting to my private wired network. This hasn’t really been a problem, but it would be extra‐nice if I could VPN in from my wireless network to my wired network. If I have time today, I hope to get that set up.
• And while I’m at it, I have a remote server on the ’net at a stable public IP address. It’s also not at my house. It would be nice to have a VPN set up between there and here so that I could connect from the server to devices on my home network. With some creative routing I could possibly even leverage that to allow VPN connections from other boxes (like our laptops where we’re not on our home wireless) into our home network, albeit slower thanks to the packetbouncing..

Sure, not all of that’s work‐related. I’m not sure I’ll have time for all of it. But it would be nice if in this day and age of connectivity I could actually connect to all of my resources. And as a software engineer who’s been living and breathing network security for the last seven or eight years, I really have no excuse. Fortunately, the only thing standing in my way is the time to get the kinks worked out.

So yeah, today’s “Connectivity Day.”