My Nor-Cal Moving Box

I was walking down the street Wednesday night, from the office to Montgomery BART station. I was crossing the street at Battery and Bush, where I made eye contact with a man holding an Iron Mountain file storage box. I thought to myself, “Is he one too?” We crossed our ways and I carried my ridiculously heavy Nor-Cal moving box the rest of the way down to BART.

I mean, it really wouldn’t have been so heavy if I took stuff home every so often, but nooooo. Pictures, toys, gadgets, pads and tampons, snacks, Taco Bell hot sauce (??), running shoes (?!?), 40lbs (no exaggeration) of red and pink color paper used to make LAST year’s Valentine’s Day baskets–okay seriously, I really should have brought that paper home a LONG time ago. Either way, with only one box handle left, I lugged it back to Brent’s place on my own.

Wednesday night, I got laid off from my 1 year 4ish months at Embark.

Actually, almost everyone got laid off from Embark. It’s not a question of who got released, but who is actually still left. Ops is down to like 10 people; Product is Janelle and Patson; and slimmed all across the board. Shocked and in disbelief, the bulk of us packed our stuff, teary eyed, blue separation package folders in hand.

The thought that struck me the most is that Embark will never be the same. Our casual and startup-like culture really brought us together like a true family. It hits home to realize that these people I’ve grown to love, I’ll never see and interact with them the same way on a daily basis anymore. SKim was on his way out with a smirk on his face (jerk, hahah), and I have to admit that it broke my heart a little to know that I won’t get to see his Nacho Cheese face as often anymore, if even at all. I hugged him and didn’t let go.

I needed to get out of there so I wouldn’t have to endure every exit. On my way out, I saw Kasia with a blue folder, and Mary, and Christine too. I needed to leave before knowing who else got blue folders.

So, I lugged my box home.

I didn’t cry.

I anticipated something like this would happen, and since my return from Hong Kong (recap to come soon), I had already ran through my mind all the things I needed to do to prepare IF I were to get laid off. It was partially a joke on my return on Monday that I’d push off any meetings until I made all the photocopies, printed all docs, saved all my logs/personal emails/files before meeting with Eric and Brent for my check-in. I did all that, and because my conversion from Full-Time to Part-Time employee was this week, I already did all my errands early in the week to use up the rest of my insurance coverage, which goes until Jan 31st. I got lucky in mentally preparing for all this.

At 8PMish, Brent came back, and he was more down than me. I’d imagine that the folks that remain at Embark feel guilty for some reason, but… this wasn’t any of our fault. This wasn’t our call, nor was it in any of our control. It was a long trying day, and we passed out (after watching LOST, of course).

Yesterday morning came, and it really hit me hard. I’m dumb. If I stayed a Full-Timer, I know I would have been one of them to stay; if not, I would at least have severance. If I could stay, I would have insurance to cover for my prescriptions, which cost 3x as much without insurance. But Brent consoled me, assuring that it’s not better staying–there’s a huge increase of work and responsibilities for each person, and I wouldn’t be able to do my artwork.

It’s true. I’d rather concentrate on my art.
I’m 2 weeks behind in my art classes and I need to catch up.
I need to concentrate on my art classes so I can build up my foundational knowledge and skills; I need this to be where I want to be for web designing and anything else I want to do beyond.

First thing I did yesterday morning, Day 1 of Unemployment, I started an email thread with some folks who were laid off. I didn’t have everyone’s personal email addresses, and only started the thread with about 5 people, sharing with them some of my resources and information. The thread grew, and each of us are still sharing our daily finds–how to file for unemployment, different insurance finds, best place to put our money to get interest back, and where to search for jobs. This was extremely helpful for a lot of us, and I’ll post the info up soon.

I’m not sure if the guy holding a box at Montgomery and Bush was laid off too, carrying his box of belongings home too. All I know is that there’s hundreds of people getting laid off every day now, and this has finally hit home for us at Embark.

This is a tough and trying time, but this is NOT impossible.

There’s SO much work to do now, but I’m taking this as an opportunity to do what I truly want to do. My main goal is to focus on my art classes as my 1st priority; then to finish my website revamp -_-; then to find web design/maintenance projects to work on as a part-time (please let me know if you know of any!)

Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) = America’s Prop 8. Help Repeal It!

On September 21st, 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was signed into federal law. DOMA, wrote discrimination into the Constitution with two strict regulations:

  1. No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
  2. The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.

On Saturday, January 10th, 2009 we will come together as one UNITED FRONT asking the LGBTQ community to join us in signing an Open Letter to President Barack Obama, during a NATIONAL DOMA PROTEST.

This letter will remind President Elect Barack Obama of the promises he made to us.
It will also serve as a pledge from our community that we will hold him to his promises and help him achieve them.

Cities across the United States will be coming together on Saturday, January 10th to a Nationwide DOMA Protest, collecting over 1,000,000 signatures to attach to an official open letter from Join the Impact to President-Elect Barack Obama asking him to Repeal DOMA.

NATIONWIDE GOAL: Collect 1,000,000 Signatures

Find the Nationwide DOMA Event near you: Join the Impact

Even Bob Barr, the author of DOMA, says Obama is right, and agrees that this law should be repealed. Below is his op-ed from the LA Times (my own bold emphases included):


No defending the Defense of Marriage Act

By Bob Barr
January 5, 2009

In 1996, as a freshman member of the House of Representatives, I wrote the Defense of Marriage Act, better known by its shorthand acronym, DOMA, than its legal title. The law has been a flash-point for those arguing for or against same-sex marriage ever since President Clinton signed it into law. Even President-elect Barack Obama has grappled with its language, meaning and impact.

I can sympathize with the incoming commander in chief. And, after long and careful consideration, I have come to agree with him that the law should be repealed.

The left now decries DOMA as the barrier to federal recognition and benefits for married gay couples. At the other end of the political spectrum, however, DOMA has been lambasted for subverting the political momentum for a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. In truth, the language of the legislation — like that of most federal laws — was a compromise.

DOMA was indeed designed to thwart the then-nascent move in a few state courts and legislatures to afford partial or full recognition to same-sex couples. The Hawaii court case Baehr vs. Lewin, still active while DOMA was being considered by Congress in mid-1996, provided the immediate impetus.

The Hawaii court was clearly leaning toward legalizing same-sex marriages. So the first part of DOMA was crafted to prevent the U.S. Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause — which normally would require State B to recognize any lawful marriage performed in State A — from being used to extend one state’s recognition of same-sex marriage to other states whose citizens chose not to recognize such a union.

Contrary to the wishes of a number of my Republican colleagues, I crafted the legislation so it wasn’t a hammer the federal government could use to force states to recognize only unions between a man and a woman. Congress deliberately chose not to establish a single, nationwide definition of marriage.

However, we did incorporate into DOMA’s second part a definition of marriage that comported with the historic — and, at the time, widely accepted — view of the institution as being between a man and a woman only. But this definition was to be used solely to interpret provisions of federal law related to spouses.

The first part of DOMA, then, is a partial bow to principles of federalism, protecting the power of each state to determine its definition of marriage. The second part sets a legal definition of marriage only for purposes of federal law, but not for the states. That was the theory.

I’ve wrestled with this issue for the last several years and come to the conclusion that DOMA is not working out as planned. In testifying before Congress against a federal marriage amendment, and more recently while making my case to skeptical Libertarians as to why I was worthy of their support as their party’s presidential nominee, I have concluded that DOMA is neither meeting the principles of federalism it was supposed to, nor is its impact limited to federal law.

In effect, DOMA’s language reflects one-way federalism: It protects only those states that don’t want to accept a same-sex marriage granted by another state. Moreover, the heterosexual definition of marriage for purposes of federal laws — including, immigration, Social Security survivor rights and veteran’s benefits — has become a de facto club used to limit, if not thwart, the ability of a state to choose to recognize same-sex unions.

Even more so now than in 1996, I believe we need to reduce federal power over the lives of the citizenry and over the prerogatives of the states. It truly is time to get the federal government out of the marriage business. In law and policy, such decisions should be left to the people themselves.

In 2006, when then-Sen. Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, he said, “Decisions about marriage should be left to the states.” He was right then; and as I have come to realize, he is right now in concluding that DOMA has to go. If one truly believes in federalism and the primacy of state government over the federal, DOMA is simply incompatible with those notions.

Bob Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and was the Libertarian Party’s 2008 nominee for president.

Read the original LA Times article here.

The above is an amazing passage, content-aside. I think it takes a lot for someone to come out and express these opinions when he could have easily done nothing at all. I respect that kind of honesty.

If you were pissed, upset, and otherwise affected by the passing of Prop 8, get off your ass and DO something about it. Find something you can do, do it, and KNOW that you’ve contributed your part in this movement for CHANGE. We need a tremendous amount of help, and we need anyone that is WILLING to help. Let me know if you need some place to be directed and I’ll find a place for you.

Don’t sit around and wait for someone else to make it happen for you–that’s what happened with Prop 8.

Revamp: Optimistic Goal — FAIL!

Well… for the last two days, I’ve attempted to record a video blog entry about my revamp status, but for some reason, the Inspiron 1525′s video webcam thing doesn’t seem to be working properly to be uploaded into YouTube. (Does anyone have any experiences with this?? I will research this tomorrow.) Anyway… here’s basically what I said:

I did NOT reach my optimistic milestone date of Jan 1 with the new revamp, to much of my own dismay!

However, I stayed in all of Xmas weekend to get a lot of it done. (Hah! I turned down a Vegas trip to be productive! (What a NERD!!!!)) I’ve reached a great point, which I’m pretty juiced about! I finished inking in (via Wacom) the sketch I doodled a few weeks back. I have to admit that I’m pretty impressed by the capabilities of the Wacom. Of course, I spent a lot of time doing some small details that most people won’t even see since I’ll probably shrink the image, but… for my own satisfaction, I went in and did all the nitty gritty details–which I LOVE to do!

My next goal would be to have the revamp done by end of January, but I won’t have computer access for most of the month, so that won’t be very plausible nor realistic. So… I’m gonna aim for end of February to get it out! I think with the progress I made in the last 2 weeks, February will be a productive month!

The main motivators for my revamp right now are:

  1. I’m sooooo bored of this design: it totally isn’t how I feel anymore, and I think my page needs more of a kick like it used to
  2. Getting my resume update: While everyone around me is working on updating their resumes in these bad times right now, my resume and everything about me is directly accessible via Googling my name. I need to make sure my persona is all PRESENTABLE the way I want, and I want my site to represent who I am right NOW.
  3. Creative Outlet: It’s been suuuchhh a long time since I’ve redesigned my site and its content!

Here’s something I had a lot of fun drawing, particularly the little details!

Thanks for sticking around, and thanks for your support! (Happy New Year!)

We’re the next Harvey Milk. Join us.

(From Equality Camp: http://equalitycamp.com/ )

The demonstrations against Prop 8 that have been organized using Facebook and wikis are promising signs of an opportunity to build a stronger, grassroots-powered movement for marriage equality. The “Please don’t divorce…” photo project is a fabulous grassroots action to help people build a personal connection to and empathy for people who are hurt by Prop 8.

One of the great weaknesses of the No on 8 campaign is that it did not take advantage of the opportunities for grassroots/netroots organizing. Also, the campaign made a big strategic error by hiding the faces of gay people, when we know that personal heart connection is what moves many people to change their minds about supporting gay rights.

The actions of the last six weeks are a great start — and there are many more opportunities to weave together a grassroots, netroots, people-powered movement. There are opportunities for people working on bottom-up initiatives to coordinate together. There are opportunities to take advantage of the power of Web 2.0 technology to empower grassroots organizers and younger activists who live online.

The Web has changed organizing; it will never work top-down again. The Web has shown us how to bring people together to make change. EqualityCamp is a pilot event to bring Web 2.0 geeks who know the lessons of the Web well together with activists for marriage equality and equal rights for gays.

EqualityCamp on January 3 in San Francisco, is a “BarCamp” style event that will bring together netroots, grassroots, and technologists to help coordinate efforts to repeal Prop 8 and support marriage equality. The people with the most power aren’t the people in a few organizations. We all have power. That means you, too. We’re organizing a way for you to exercise it easily. At EqualityCamp you set the agenda. We discover what we want and we teach each other what we need to know.

Themes and topics at EqualityCamp are expected to include:

  • connecting “netroots” and traditional organizing
  • using “Web 2.0″ tools to support a grassroots movement
  • bringing effective practices from the Obama campaign into the movement for marriage equality
  • digital video concepts to share stories and build support

Come to EqualityCamp and flesh out your ideas to use your networks, organizing and tech skills to support marriage equality and help repeal Prop 8. We are dedicated to making a people-powered marriage equality movement work from the bottom-up.

Join us!
January 3, 2008
Citizen Space
425 2nd Street, Suite 300
San Francisco, CA 94107
Google Map

For more information: http://equalitycamp.com/
Registration (you’ll need a ticket to attend): http://equalitycamp.eventbrite.com/

If you cannot make it to San Francisco for January 3rd, then visit EqualityCamp.com to learn how to make your own in your town. Please comment if you have any more questions.