We spent Saturday up at Donner Lake near Tahoe breaking in our new snowshoes. Super fun.

Well, 1/2 of us anyway...

Brent's turning 50 next week, but he's got to be on a plane to Asia for work on his actual birthday on the 13th, so we're coming down to San Francisco to have a little fun this weekend before he leaves. I've planned a couple of fun things for him, but since we didn't have anywhere to throw a party proper, I thought it would be fun to meet up with friends at the Eagle and the Lone Star on Sunday afternoon to celebrate Brent's halfway-to-a-hundred milestone!

We'll be down there in the afternoon, definitely by 5. The Lone Star is at 10th and Harrison and the Eagle is just down the street at 12th and Hairrison. If you're in the Bay Area and you can swing by, we'd love to see you and buy you a drink!

If you don't see us at the Eagle, we're at the Lone Star saying hi to friends there. If you can't make it and just want to send a happy birthday email to fill up his email box while he's heading to Bhutan on Tuesday the 13th, Brent's email address is brent at bearsgonewild.com.

Big birthday bear hugs!

Erik

I normally have only my phone and a lighter (sporting my newest experiment in branding) in my pocket. I quit smoking but you never know when you might relapse or need to open a beer (note metal cap). I almost always have a bottle cap or receipt in my pocket, but there was no receipt today. My keys, of which there are many, live on my belt loop. Right on bottomy days, left when I'm feelin' toppy. Cuz I'm old skool - and versatile. While this may seem mildly uncluttered, you can pan out for the bigger picture, which includes the destruction that is my desk.




As always, thank you Chris Glass for the inspiration to put something, anything in my LJ.

Howdy fellers (and Monica!),

If you're wondering where I am and what I'm doing this week, check out http://experience.aidslifecycle.org. If you click on the podcast player, I'll give you a rundown of what's going on. My buddy Jeff is posting hundreds of great photos and we have some awesome bloggers riding and volunteering all day and writing after dinner.

It's been a long week already and we're not quite half way to LA, but it's an amazing week and I feel privileged to be here, even though I'm missing my bear and my pups at home.

While we take a minute to mark the passing of one hateful bigot, let's not forget that there are thousands of others out there who will rush to fill any void left by his short fall to hell.

Take, for example, Don Wildmon and the assclowns at the American Family Association. They're back up to their old tricks again. Actually, it's the same trick that they've never really stopped. I don't understand how the people on their email list don't just say, "Enough about the homos already. Don't you have anything else to talk about!" Not to mention Ol' Wildmon's one man crusade to topple Ford for their egregious support of equal rights.

Anyway, they sent out this action alert to their legions of bigots with TVs and phones, asking them to call and/or boycott any company that sponsored a show that had determined was "supportive of the homosexual lifestyle." You know. REALLY gay stuff like ER or The Simpsons. So, if you're happy that the Tinky Winky bashing may finally stop for a while and you'd like to do something to counter morons like the ones at the American Family Association, please take a few moments tomorrow during business hours and help me light up the switchboards of The Top Ten Pro-Homosexual Sponsors on Television with some big, gay love and support. Let 'em know that you appreciate their sponsorship of those shows in the face of the hatred and stupidity that is heaped on them by the AFA and other organizations like them. Finally, let them know that there will always be more of us than them and we buy cars, cellphones, makeup (hello!), drugs, and oatmeal too.

I'm not so big on memes, but if you post this in your journal, I'll send you a pic of yourself on a map of the world with all the places everyone you know has ever been along with a list of the names... oh, never mind. If you post this in your journal/blog/watercooler at work, maybe we can make a lot of customer service people happy on the day after Jerry made us so happy. And that would be nice.

He's finally dead.

And now I can't get that Elmer Fudd song outta my head... "The wabbit kicked the bucket. The bucket kicked the wabbit."

So yesterday was my very first trip ever to an HMO. The job I have now includes Kaiser healthcare, and I had to get a TB test for work. So I scheduled an appt. with my new GP for a check up and figured I'd get the TB test then too. Well, my GP is in SF and I ended up having to change my plans and get the test earlier in Roseville, about 20 miles from Grass Valley. I called the appointment line and this really cool nurse made the change for me.

I drove down to the Roseville Kaiser center and checked in at the desk later that afternoon. "Your co-pay is $5 Mr. Ireland." I handed her a $20 and got my change thinking, "Wow. $5. That's so cheap. Cool." Two minutes later, I was called into the exam room where I got weighed and asked how tall I am.  As the nurse was putting a thermometer in my ear, she asked what I was there for. "TB test" said I. She yanked the thermometer outta my ear and just looked at me kinda shocked. "What? A nurse should do that. You don't need a doctor's appt. for that. YOU SHOULD GET YOUR $5 BACK!"

"OK" I said. "How do I do that and can a nurse see me now?"

I'll go and fill out the paperwork and put you on the nurse's schedule" she said. "Wait here."

So I waited there and read everything posted to the wall. I'm totally up on my gynecological and prostate cancer screening techniques now. After I'd read everything, I thought about swiping a few tongue depressors but didn't and then just waited for about 10 minutes. A super-perky nurse finally showed up to give me my test. She had nothing but bad things to say about the nice nurse who'd changed my appt. that morning over the phone. "They booked you a doc's appt. for a TB test? They are SUCH RETARDS!"

"Well," I said "I think he made a doctor's appt. for me because that was what I originally had. He was actually very nice."

"Don't get me started. Those people are TOTALLY RETARDED!" she continued. I just gave up with a shrug and she kept talking about the very intricate weekend schedule that meant I would have to come back on Sunday, not Saturday to have my test read. We chit chatted a bit and she told me that the docs there at that office were awesome and how come I didn't just have my doctor there, closer to home by 2 hours. I explained that I knew my doc in SF. As a matter of fact, we dated for a short while many years ago while we were both bartenders. Then I asked if they had any gay docs there in that office.

She went from super-perky to completely-over-the-top perky in an instant. "Oh. You're gay. Well that's great. It's not like it's a disease anyone can catch or anything. Yes. Of course. You want a gay doctor. We have two lesbian Nurse Practioners here. They'd probably know about a gay doctor here. But they're off today. Hey, let's go see how we can find you a gay doctor!"

She leads me by the hand down the hall and starts popping her head into a couple of offices asking if you can find out on the Kaiser web site if a doctor you're interested in seeing is gay. The other nurses told her (and me) that that probably wasn't something they had on the web site. But maybe you should ask (insert lesbians' names here.) "Oh, I would but they're off today." Finally, she gave me a number to call an ask there. Then she took me out to the front desk to make sure I got my money back. First I had to go through the whole "You had a doctor's appt. scheduled for a TB test? That's crazy." thing with the receptionist who noted that she thought it was weird when I checked in but "since they were so crazy busy right then" she didn't bother to ask me about it. There was nobody else in line...  As she was giving me my $5 back, the nurse who gave me my test started in again on how retarded the phone people were..."

The receptionist looked a little surprised at first and then just smiled and said "You're saying exactly what I'm thinking..."

It was really weird. But free. And I kinda felt like I fit in there and will probably change my doctor to one of theirs. Even if there aren't any gay ones there after all.

 Everybody's doin' it. And doin' it. So we're doin' it too.

Got mad skillz? Send in your LOLbear photo to lolbear@bearsgonewild.com, and if it gets a laugh, we'll post it. If you need a photo to start with, just cruise our photo galleries and grab something you like. You can check out the latest additions at LOLbear.com. Many thanks to my lovely ladybear parade model, sinnabor, who's beauty is matched only by his sense of humor.

At the end of everymonth (for as long as this is still funny...), we'll send a Bubba Loves It!  t-shirt of your choosing to whoever who gets the most (and highest) ratings on his/her pix.

(reposted from http://bearsgonewild.com/blog because i'm findin' it hard to have time for two blogs when just this one was hard to post to before... ;o()

If'n you want the bearsgonewild.com blog (which is different from my LJ blog) to show up in your LJ friends page, just add bearsgonewildfd to your friends list. I'll probably double post everyonce once in a while, but mostly it's just one or the other. Thanks again  bikerbearmark for setting up that feed for me!