Today, we added a new family member.  She is a beagle and her name is Dagney.  It’s kind of a weird name, but I thought that it would be a good one.  It is nothing we would have come up with, but when we saw her vet records, that’s the name written on the top of it.  I like it.  This was Bear’s first introduction to her in the back yard and they hit it off perfectly.  My Bear is such a nice dog.  I only wish that he didn’t slobber so much because she has walked around this house looking like she had just stepped out of the bath tub.

We’ll be giving her a bath really soon!

After rereading what I wrote, I know I started off talking about something and ended up on something totally different. Bear with me!

Some people don’t know this about me, but years ago, I wanted to try out modeling.  I honestly thought I had something.  No, I’m not talking exclusively about nudity as you may be thinking.  I had lost some of my body fat and was looking the best I had in my life.  Along with the body change came a drastic increase in self-esteem.  I was soon to find out how self-esteem is great,  but if the person doesn’t strive to keep that, it can flitter away.  Sadly, flittering away is exactly what it did.

In 2001, I was contemplating becoming a stripper at a local bar.  I really thought I had what I needed.  One trip to San Francisco and no telling how many meals and no time to work out and all that went down the drain.  I know, I’ve been told that there is no way I could have gained enough weight that quickly to make a difference.  I might not have, but something changed.  I can’t describe it, but it did.

After going through a few jobs, I became tired of feeling sad and feeling self hatred.  I got a gym membership and started to work out A LOT!  My waist size went back down.  My chest, arms, legs, and backside became defined and looked fantastic.  As you can guess, this all made my self-esteem improve tremendously.  I would go to the gym during lunch, after work, and sometimes, even before work.  I had the perfect diet because I had a job where I could eat when I needed nourishment.  I lost that job and started working at a place where I could not leave to get healthy food, I lost tons of sleep because of stupid work schedules or having to stay over my scheduled hours because people didn’t show up when they should.  This is where I commence with the downward spiral of depression.

I decided that school would lift me back up.  I feel comfortable when I am learning.  People think I might be crazy, but when you have something to keep your brain busy, and better yourself at the same time, you can accomplish so many things.  The possibilities are endless when you gain knowledge.  Even though I had about a year of disappointment after loosing a great opportunity to further a drafting career, I decided to go back to school and learn Accounting.  I stayed in the same job while going through both programs.  Thankfully, after graduating from the Accounting program, I found a much better job.

I can’t put into words the change I was able to make, with the great assistance and direction of a coworker.  I went to the gym with a purpose of growing mentally and physically and that’s exactly what I did.  I grew in every way I wanted.  It was fantastic!  I’ve shared pictures on here of my progress.  August was quite shitty, speaking honestly.  I lost another job due to the damn economy.

Since I did not have a job, I once again found myself in a place where I felt useless.  I had two associates degrees and no job to put them to use.  What did I do to find myself in this position in life where I keep getting flushed down the proverbial drain when the economy or someone decides to shrink a business.  It is definitely not where I saw myself years ago.  No one ever says, “In five years, I see myself constantly ending up in dead end jobs or in jobs I take only because I need employment.”  That would be a dreary outlook and it became a dreary reality.

Along with job loss, there has been a change in my body.  Depression can, will, and has caused me to lose sight of where I want my physical self.  I have felt unworthy to go to the gym since I became unemployed.  I have the membership (it’s not that expensive for one) but I feel horrible knowing that the other half is working to support us while I’m pumping iron.  That would be very selfish of me…and that is not me.

I’m hoping that the next year will see a drastic change.  Something has to change or I’m going to end up in a mental hospital.  No joke.  I’ve had enough failure for one person to handle.  My body and mind can’t take anymore upset and depression.

As you can tell by the date of the post, I am a little behind on my NaBlogPoMo.  I am trying to get caught up before the month ends.  This is part of that attempt!  LOL!

1. I’m getting more details about Miracle in the Woods tied together and finalized in my mind. I plan on getting it more together in the upcoming days. I am hoping to make multiple posts in the next few days to get caught up. I should only be five behind after this one posts.
2. I just downloaded a trial version of MacJournal to test it out. I have been using Windows Live Blog Poster for all the posts and I love using it, but sometimes, I would rather use my iMac to do a post. And, while on my iMac, I would rather not have to go to the WordPress site online to do all the editing. We’ll see how this goes.
3. After today (Saturday), I will not have a tax class to handle. I should be free to write when I need to or want to. Now, I have no reason for not posting as I have a posting application on everything I have with me all the time. In the next day or two, I will have it on every computer in the house.
4. The accompanying podcast will sound much better in the coming days. I have found out where the sound problem was originating and everything should be sounding good from now on. Let’s hope, that is!

So as I finish this, my eyes are becoming increasingly heavy and I should get some sleep. I have the tax final in about five hours and I am guessing I need to sleep a little before I have to drive to it. I feel like I’m back in college when I would stay awake all night before an exam. Cram, cram, cram! It worked sometimes…not always.

Until later!

If you have a smartphone, you are well aware of the many apps out there available to do many things quickly.  Really, when someone says there’s an app for that, they mean it.  There are apps designed for entertainment, accounting, education, and a vast array of other useful areas of life.  There’s one I am liking more and more as the days go by.  That app is GetGlue.

Want to see what people are talking about concerning your favorite show?  Want to see what your friends are watching so you have something to talk about the next day?  GetGlue is the app for you!  The app and the website allow you to share with others by “checking in” to your favorite show and it allows you to further share this with your friends on Facebook and Twitter if you choose to do so.  I know what you might be saying.  “Telling people what I’m watching doesn’t sound interesting and more of a waste of time.”  It’s possible for some people to think that.  I personally like to see what my friends are watching because I might be missing out on something I would like.  I know that most people will not have any interest in knowing I watch Days of our Lives, but someone might like to watch Dr. Who, Holmes on Homes, or Bones.  I have a wide variety of shows I’m interested in.

I must say, like many apps out there, it is something to pass time.  Of course, you’re not going to learn anything by using the app or get anything organized.  It’s part of the big rise in “social networking.”  Get as many people to download this app and to use the website as we can and we’ll network them to find out what people are watching.  We’ll even give them suggestions on what they “could” be watching.  Let’s also give them stickers for watching certain shows, chances to get discounts on merchandise from networks, and take part in conversations about what happened.

You know, now that I think about it, I can see how this started out with a thesis for someone in graduate school.  Maybe they were doing something about the television viewing habits of people and the impacts on others’ habits when shared on a bulletin board type website.  I could see an A+ from that project!

The GetGlue app is FREE in the iTunes store and the website is also FREE.  Free is good for something that allows you to do this type of thing.  Social Networking….it’s what’s now!

Well, someone has come up with the idea of posting a podcast every day in the month of November.  Personally, I couldn’t see that happening.  So, for me, I am making it a goal to post something to the blog for every day this month.  Crazy?  In a way.  But I want to show that I can do something with the others in the Pride 48 community.  Not only that, it’s my blog!  I love to write and I like to share my thoughts with the world.  Of course I can do it and of course, I want to do it.  Get ready people….there’s no telling what might come out of this mind of mine in 30 days.

What could I write about?  You can tell from my last posting that I want to learn more Spanish.  It has been a dream of mine to learn it since I was old enough to think it.  When I knew I was going to be taking it in high school, I was ecstatic!  Two years of it and then two quarters of it at UWA was terrific.  What’s the bad part about that?  Well, I was in Alabama and at that time, the only people who spoke Spanish except for the teacher were the men planting trees for the local timber company.  Yeah, “Mister, que hondas? Muchos arbols, eh?”  That would have worked great, right!

I could also talk about the books I have started, what I want them to be about, and how they are coming together.  I really want to finish them as I have been working on them for years.  One book has almost two complete chapters and the other has almost three.  I guess something like that takes time.

I could also talk about my adventures in the US tax system.  I have been taking tax classes as you might know if you listen to the podcast.  Taxes are interesting and in the end, they work out like logic puzzles.  Most people don’t want to deal with them because they think the IRS is some terrible arm of the gov’t and that they are always out to get anyone and everyone.  That’s true for those they feel are cheating the system.  If you are a regular Joe or Sally, they aren’t worried about you much.  If you can read and you take your time, you can do your own taxes.  If you don’t want to do them the old fashion way, get to a computer and do them with Turbo Tax.  It asks you all the questions and fills out the forms for you.  Done!  Sign them and send them off to the IRS.  There’s an idea!

For those of you who take the time to read my updates, get ready!  November should have a total of 30 posts.  They may not be posted on the days titled, but there will be 30!

The way one would read this map is simple.  The parts of the world in dark green are the ones with the heaviest traffic to the site.  Here, that country would obviously be the United States.  As the traffic totals lower, the shade of green gets lighter and lighter.  Then, at the lowest level of visitors, or hits, we have white.  Greenland is the largest patch of white for this time period stretching from September 25 – October 25.  Inside Google Analytics, you can change the time period you would like it to span.  Sometimes, I like to get a complete overview of the sites traffic from the time of inception till the present day.  It can do that, but it’s a lot of information to put into the graphs.  I would love to see no white at all on this world map, but I know that would be asking a lot for some areas.  I realize that looking at what may be considered as “gay content” is illegal and frowned upon in certain regions of the world for various reasons…not always the right ones but for reasons that the government or religious organization has seen unfit for their citizens.  For those of us in the US, we should be thankful every day that we have our freedoms because many others in the world do not get that same freedom.

The next step that’s available for research is the ability to look at a smaller area of the world map.  You can look into individual countries and see how it is broken down.  Here in the US, if there is a reader from another country, we are broken down into governing states.  There are 50 of them, including the two masses at the bottom of the picture called Alaska (thank you USSR) and Hawaii.  The the broken down map follows the same convention of color darkness.  We can see that Georgia (my home state), Wisconsin, and California have the most visitors to the site.  Next in line are Texas, New York, Florida, and so on.  The least amount of visitors seem to be in Wyoming, West Virginia (how y’all doin’?), and Vermont.  Really, Vermont?  Is it the “country” part of it?  Certainly, I wouldn’t think it would be the gay aspect to the site.  I would love to see this map get darker all over.  Sadly, there is no way to keep my own number of visits to the site from showing up in the tally.  When I break Georgia down, I do like to see that there are many more others visiting than just me.  I do have many friends here and I thank them for being interested in what I am doing.  Love to y’all!

Something I have noticed was that out of all the US states and cities, there is one spot in Wisconsin that visits my site a tremendous amount.  Out of the 1,238 visitors from the US, 116 of those came from Wisconsin alone.  That is one less than from Georgia!  Don’t get me wrong…I love visitors!  I really, really do.  But I would love to hear what it is that I am doing to attract so many visits from that state.

Let’s break that down even farther.  The town with the most visits is Lake Mills with 70 hits to the site.  The second highest town in the state is Madison with only 15 hits.  That’s a difference of 55 visitors.  I looked up Lake Mills on Google Maps to see if it was a major city.  Compared to other locations up there, it isn’t that large.  It definitely has a good number of trees.  I love how it sets on Rock Lake.  That would be nice.  I don’t think I could live there, however, because it is in the area of the country where I would freeze my ass off.  I love the design of some of its buildings.  The Lutheran church, for one, seems rather nice from above.  If you are in this area, I would love to hear from you.  Send me an email and tell me how the site is looking and what you like about it.

Do me a great big favor if you read this.  I would love to know where my visitors are from.  I love to hear from people who see the site.  I love to hear what you like and what you would like to see more of.  I do this for myself and a way to get my voice and thoughts out to the rest of the world, but I also do it for those that would read the content.  I can’t do it all for myself alone.  I just typed this out, so I will not want to read through it over and over again!  LOL!  Send an email to thegaycountryboy@gmail.com and say HELLO!

I know this is pretty late, but I have now found time to write. So here goes…

Labor day weekend in Atlanta for the past 25 years has been home to one of the countries largest pop culture events known as Dragon*Con.  People from all over flock to our city of the South to revel in the gloriousness which is Sci-Fi and alternate reality and gaming.  Who knew there were so many areas to cover in this pop culture we live in today?  I certainly didn’t until I started going to the celebration.

I haven’t ever been that interested in comic books or their characters.  If there was one superhero I have ever been considerably interested in, it would be Green Lantern.  Call me complicated, but I like the idea that there is not THE Green Lantern.  It is most important to remember that Hal Jordan was simply a part of a greater collection of power that was not only made of humans, but a vast array of beings from across the universe.  I liked that aspect.  Superman was all about himself in my eyes.  Batman had Robin to help him out.  When the Superfriends were together, they worked as a team, including Green Lantern at one point in time.  I know a bit about the heroes just because if you are an American of any age, you have been subjected to the world of comics.

Saturday was our choice day to attend the festivities.  It’s a bit more to buy the passes for Saturday than for Sunday, but we figured we would go on that day since we would be down there for the parade…pictured above.  The Box Heroes were pretty awesome and I think pretty creative.  There were so many things in the parade I liked and that I thought were wonderful creations.  The more I see things dealing with Steampunk, the more I get interested in it.  I think it’s cool!  Who wouldn’t think it cool to look through the eyes of a person in the Victorian era…but in a futuristic way.  Bionic arms or legs, lasers from the eyes, and wires coming from who knows where.  Makes me want to design something now!

When I said our day of choice, I mean the “guys”…the other half, George, Romo, and me.  We were all there, on the street corner, waiting for the parade to begin.  During the parade, we had to deal with kids getting in the way, stepping on our feet, pushing their way through the crowd, and being totally annoying.  It’s about as annoying as children at the Atlanta Pride parade…except during this parade, parents didn’t have to worry about their kids getting free condoms and lube thrown at them.  Just candy every now and then.  After standing through the parade, we needed a break.  We headed to where we could get some peace and quiet…and play with our cameras!

One of the best things to happen that weekend was the chance to meet a really cool vidcaster and blogger.  You might have seen him on YouTube as GayComicGeek or you might have seen his blog also called The Gay Comic Geek.  He is such a nice guy, not mentioning how gorgeous he is.  HOT!  He definitely loves his comics!  I don’t blame him.  If I had something I was into that much, I would surround myself with it.  check out his site and see his collections and new purchases.  When he buys something new, he shares it with the rest of us.  I really like the drawings people have made of him.  Very nice! LOL

Well, I’ve been working on this post since Labor Day weekend, and now on October 22, I have finished it.  Wow, that’s some dedication there!  LOL!  If you get a chance to get to Atlanta for next year’s Dragon*Con, go to it.  If you love comics or Sci-fi, you will love the crowd and the things you can do.

The following was a post I placed on there for June 22, 2009 when I was thinking of the podcasting thing.  See if you can see how much I love bears!

Hi!

*** waving hands so people look back over here ***

I know that it has been a really long time. I have been here, there, but not everywhere. I live the vanilla life! Travis and I have been spending a lot more time together. I think it has been really great. He might disagree somewhat, but overall, I am not that annoying to him. I annoy him because he WON’T TALK! Yes!

*** bears descend from the clouds with fingers to lips….Shhhhhhhh! ***

OK bears, stop encouraging him! Where was I….

I am thinking about doing a podcast! YAY! I am trying to come up with a good base topic for it. I could do underwear, but that is my friend Tim’s job at www.underwearnewsbriefs.com (cheap hocking of his site..you’re welcome!) I am thinking GAY FROM THE COUNTRY! I mean, think about it. I don’t know another podcast or program made by a gay man about hiking, camping, fishing, and even sometimes hunting. Why not start something fresh and something that men like. Even some of them that like other men. I think it could work. Plus, I am opinionated as some of you well know. I could do this!

*** bears change quickly into camo briefs and hold up their rifles….POW! ***

You guys kill me! Ka-Ching!

Obviously, the podcast would not be all outdoor stuff. It would be reviews of movies I see, stuff going on in my life, and things from my past from the country. I would have some of my friends join me from time to time to add some other personalities to the mix.

*** bears take out hand mixers as they growl ***

I love you bears….but lift your beautiful hairy asses back into the clouds!
Later!