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Life

My First Trip to New Orleans

August 10, 2017

Bourbon Street in New Orleans' French Quarter.

I recently experienced New Orleans for the first time.

Michael’s sister hosted us for the weekend to celebrate her birthday and wedding date announcement.

It was my first time in the city, and the trip was filled with beautiful architecture, amazing food, humidity, and an adult beverage or two (allegedly.)

A creepy and cluttered tourist shop in New Orleans.

Buildings in the French Quarter of New Orleans at night.

A bar that’s open 24/7 in the Garden District of New Orleans.

A well-lit historic house in New Orleans.

Miami, Minnesota, and Dallas: How I spent my 20’s

August 8, 2017

A view of Bank of America Tower from the Omni in downtown Dallas.

This week I undertook the humbling task of reviewing all of my blog entries.

This blog stretches back to my freshman year of college, so there are a lot of great (and not-so-great) memories archived in these pages.

Here’s a look at how I spent the last decade or so, from Miami to Minneapolis, and then down to Texas.

We start in Miami — there were long days in the library, bad drag shows, and misadventures in Little Havana.

Then there was the move to Minnesota, where I started law school and lived in a frat house during my first semester.

dogs

I sometimes tell people that my labradoodle is still a puppy. She acts like a puppy — hyper, uncontrollably excitable, and easily fooled. But I just realized today that Ingrid is already two years old.

I got Ingrid back in October 2015 (how time flies!) and she’s been tumbling around my apartments ever since. What a quick two years.

Ingrid the labradoodle among the flowers in Perry Heights, Dallas.

Ingrid the Labradoodle at a Highland Park fountain.

dogs / Oak Lawn

Back to the tennis courts

April 7, 2017

Apollo the German shepherd with Ingird the Labradoodle

We finally made our way back to the tennis courts to wear out Ingrid, our labradoodle, and Apollo, the German shepherd that we recently sponsored.

The enclosed tennis courts in our neighborhood are perfect for letting the dogs run around. The speed of our tennis game usually means that they can’t grab the balls — although there were a few close calls.

Apollo the German shepherd at the Perry Heights tennis courts.

By the end of the game, some of the tennis balls were so soaked in dog drool that it felt like hitting a water balloon. (Those ended up getting thrown out.)

And yes, it was as disgusting as it sounds.

Life

Dead Blondes on “You Must Remember This”

April 4, 2017

Photo of a blonde woman by Pablo Charnas, Wadowice, Poland, via Unsplash.

One of my favorite podcasts is called You Must Remember This — a Hollywood history series that covers the juicy details behind some of America’s most famous and infamous celebrities.

The new season of You Must Remember This is called “Dead Blondes.” It is all about the tragic deaths of iconic Hollywood blondes such as Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield.

The storytelling is the best part about this podcast. The tales of careers-gone-wrong don’t require any prior knowledge of the actors involved, which is great because I haven’t heard of many of the characters.

I just finished Episode 10: “Barbara Payton,” and it was fascinating.

Dallas / dogs

Meet Apollo

April 3, 2017

Last week we sponsored a German shepherd named Apollo — he’s available through White Rock Dog Rescue.

The backstory: Apollo was taken in by a woman who found him running loose in her neighborhood. The woman couldn’t find the owner and couldn’t keep him because she travels for a living. So she paid to have him vaccinated/chipped and referred him to the dog rescue.

dogs

Why we can’t have nice things

March 24, 2017

Ingrid, our labradoodle in front of Starbucks.

I have a pretty nice apartment, but I rarely have guests over.

There are a few reasons for that:

The nearby gay bars, restaurants, and apartment pools form important third places that make house guests unnecessary.
Constant contact through social media lessens the demand for in-person visits.
We are more likely to meet people out for drag shows or theme park trips than a dinner party.

But the main reason why we rarely have guests is Ingrid, our labradoodle.

Life

Overheard this weekend

February 26, 2017

A view of downtown Dallas from the Trinity River

It was an eventful weekend. Here are the quotes:

I’m sitting in front of Starbucks, waiting on Michael, when a heavily made-up middle-aged woman approaches and riles up the dogs.

Blanche: “Oh how lovely!”
(the dogs completely lose their shit)
Blanche: “Your chihuahua looks like my baby! His name was Steven St. Domingo! He’s dead.”
(she then picks up my dog and lets him lick her face.)
Blanche: “Precious!”
(she looks at me)
Blanche: “Oh! You have such gorgeous eyes! You look like a malamute huskey! … but you must hear that a lot… I have to go to church now and repent for my sins — of which there are many.”

Life

This January in Dallas

January 31, 2017

Snow falls in front of the Omni Hotel in downtown Dallas.

January was hard.

It’s the last day of a long, busy month.

Dallas kicked off January with a snowstorm — which is what they call any amount of snow around here.

At first, people were in denial that it would snow at all. The snow inevitably came, and then there was a collective freak-out in which people fled downtown to spin-out on the highways (or sit in traffic.)

I was amused by this until I remembered that drivers in Minnesota weren’t much better.

LGBT / Life

My year in Dallas

January 1, 2017

What a year!

Here are the highlights from my first full year in Dallas.

Work: After seven years at Thomson Reuters, I made the jump to The Dallas Morning News in July.

Home: This spring, I moved into a new apartment in the same building. My building’s original management company also had a very ugly decline which culminated in a sale. (Sadly, the new company isn’t much better.)

ilume Park’s small dog park, covered in poop.

Life: I turned 30 years old this year, but celebrations were muted because of the Pulse nightclub attack and downtown Dallas police ambush. Around that time I also came across a dead body on the morning dog walk. So there’s that.

This fall, I also bought a new phone which happened to be recalled.

A reporter at the scene of a suicide near Katy Trail.

Celebrations: Here are some of the events that I made it to this year:

Texas Bear Roundup (TBRU): including a performance by Willam on a hoverboard.
St. Patrick’s Day by SMU: Complete drunkfest, which was fun to attend sober.
Oak Cliff Mardi Gras: A cute neighborhood festival featuring a ton of beads.
Easter in Lee Park: A bizarre event featuring a puppy parade and some serious outfits.
Independence Day Weekend: Including a pool party.
Dallas Gay Pride: Massive, as always.
Fort Worth Gay Pride: A poorly organized, production.
Texas Latino Gay Pride: A small festival featuring some of the neighborhood’s most prominent gay leaders.
State Fair of Texas: Featuring lots of questionable food and a frightening moving cowboy puppet.
Oak Lawn Halloween Block Party: Which was insanely busy.

There were also countless drag shows and pageants, brunches with friends, and very long dog walks.

I’m probably leaving a lot out, but those were the high points of the year. Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Life

Winter Break

December 28, 2016

I really loved winter breaks during college.

I would stay on campus because I was a resident assistant. I basically had the place to myself because the only people on campus were stray visitors, a handful of international students, and a skeletal support staff.

As an adult, I enjoy a similar winter break between Christmas and New Years. Traffic is light and the office becomes remarkably empty as coworkers spend the last of their PTO.

This is an excellent time to get work done (as long as you don’t need to work with someone on vacation.) This is also a much-needed pause between the hectic spurts of work that happen in early December and January.

Daily / Dallas Morning News

Germany attacks, Walmart drama

December 20, 2016

Here’s what I’m talking about today:

1. German terror attacks: A terror attack killed 12 people in Berlin yesterday. I was able to find a German newspaper’s livestream coverage of the event, which is why The Dallas Morning News had the most up-to-date English-language coverage yesterday and today. (German is my first language.)

Daily

Trolls, weight loss, and digital revenue

December 16, 2016

Laptop photo by Jay Wennington via Unsplash

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. “Fake news” trolling: There’s been a lot of hand-wringing over the age-old problem of fake news. A relatively new phenomenon is that people are starting troll legitimate news sources by calling real stories fake.

We get that all of the time at the newspaper, and I’ve even started to see it on this blog.

I’ve found that most of the negative comments come from people who fall into one of four categories:

Those who genuinely disagree with the author.
Readers who assume that the author is exaggerating or misrepresenting facts due to ulterior motives.
Non-readers who are just reacting to a headline, tweet, or social-share image without fully reading a post.
Pure-trolls who solely want to write negative comments to harass or bully the author.

You can work with people in category #1, but #2-4 are lost causes.

Daily

That Fall Feeling

December 15, 2016

Here’s what I’m talking about today.

1. That fall feeling: Christmas may be next week, but it really feels like fall in Dallas.

The leaves finally turned color, but it’s still warm enough to comfortably do long dog walks before and after work. Although that may change – we are going from a high of 75° on Saturday to a high of 32° on Sunday.

Looks like brunch won’t be on a patio.

2. Dropbox: They had an unfortunate Twitter incident yesterday. On the positive side, their annual “diversity in the workplace” report probably got way more views than last year’s.

Daily

Jesper Jenset, Aleppo, Argentine hackers

December 14, 2016

Here’s what I’m talking about today.

1. Jesper Jenset: I came across this artist on Soundcloud and I just assumed that everyone knew who he was. (Apparently not!)

His name is Jesper Jenset, he’s from Norway, and this song is straight 🔥🔥🔥

Daily / LGBT / Oak Lawn

Crap and crime in the gayborhood

December 13, 2016

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. The shit field: The small dog park in my apartment building has become a chaotic biohazard. It’s generally too filthy to use, and we can hear dogs barking long into the night.

The number of dogs some tenants have contributes to the problem. You have to be paying really close attention when you have four dogs running around.

2. Bank of America: The bank by my apartment keeps getting robbed. It happened earlier this year, and apparently again yesterday. I wonder what the security situation over there is.

Daily / LGBT

Racism in Oak Lawn gay bars, winter in Dallas, Women Who Draw

December 12, 2016

Man at club by Soren Astrup Jorgenson via Unsplash.

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. Why some gay bars refuse to play hip-hop music: It’s usually because of racism.

We had an unfortunate situation in the gayborhood recently. The short story: A DJ at one of the bars allegedly complained about black customers requesting hip-hop music. Variants of the n-word were used to refer to the customers.

Of course this conversation happened via text, and screenshots were widely circulated on Facebook. Now people are outraged and some are boycotting that bar.

This is part of a broader tendency of gay bars to shy away from playing hip-hop music. The perception among some bars is that hip-hop music attracts an unsavory crowd that doesn’t spend much money and tends to get into fights.

The problem is that “we don’t play hip-hop because of the crowd” is often a veiled way of saying “we don’t want black people here.”

The result is that hip-hop (other than the stray Beyonce song) gets relegated to the bars with the worst standards, and stereotypes just reinforce themselves.

Daily / Law

Magazines & Lawsuits

December 9, 2016

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. Magazines! We subscribe to a lot of them.

Many of the magazines, especially Bloomberg Businessweek, are like little works of art. The impressive design allows our magazines to double as temporary table decorations. (Or pretty clutter.)

Austin / Daily

Notes from Austin, Twitter’s relevance, Project Runway: Junior

December 8, 2016

Here’s what I’m talking about today.

1. Lessons from Austin: I recently went to Austin for a social media conference hosted by the Engaging News Project and UT Austin’s journalism school.

Some observations:

Experimentation: Social media evolves quickly and journalists are still experimenting with the best ways of using various platforms. It was however shocking to see journalists discussing tactics that marketers and advertisers have been using for years.
Is Twitter worth it? Many people observed that Twitter doesn’t drive a lot of traffic to our websites (compared Facebook.) However, Twitter is a vastly more effective tool for reaching influencers and finding real-time breaking news. Facebook’s algorithm is also fickle, so investing too much time in Facebook-exclusive content may be a mistake.
Goals: The most glaring problem that many newsrooms seem to have is failing to create a solid strategy for social media efforts. Concrete goals are essential to using a platform productively. Do you want to drive traffic to your site? Nurture sources? Reach a particular audience? Sell native ads?

Daily

$10 Starbucks, Reddit trolls, The Weather Channel smackdown

December 7, 2016

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning:

1. Expensive coffee: Starbucks recently opened a high-end version of its stores in an attempt to attract “millennials.” Apparently, millennials are really into $10 cups of coffee.

I’m at the tail-end of the millennial group and a $10 cup of coffee doesn’t appeal to me at all. Maybe the younger kids have expensive tastes?

2. Trump is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: And it was well-earned.

Remember that this is an award for the most influential person, not the best. Hitler and Stalin also earned the title.